


got me singing melodies i never thought i would

by el_em_en_oh_pee



Series: it's just like we were meant to be [2]
Category: Glee
Genre: Ambiguity, Anal Sex, Angst, Bars and Pubs, Camping, Comeplay, Coming Out, Developing Relationship, Drunk Dialing, Halloween, Hand Jobs, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Marijuana, New Year's Eve, Oral Sex, Phone Sex, Smoking, Stargazing, Summer, Texting, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-29
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2017-11-02 16:27:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 60,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/el_em_en_oh_pee/pseuds/el_em_en_oh_pee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt has no idea what's going on between him and Sam right now, not really. Whatever it is, smoking pot together is probably a really inauspicious start to any kind of relationship, especially with a straight man. So it's not that.</p><p>Right?</p><p>(aka: the one where Sam teaches Kurt how to smoke and then things start to happen. Feelings things.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [questceque_cest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/questceque_cest/gifts).



> This was intended to be a purely indulgent 3000 word smut fic written for my friend K's eyes (and smoking kink) only. Then it ran away from me. I never thought I'd write m/m Glee fic, let alone Kum!
> 
> Please note that this fic won't deserve its "explicit" rating until later chapters. Unless, um, you happen to have a huge smoking kink :) The emphasis will not stay on smoking/pot/what have you for the whole fic, either :).
> 
> The title for this fic is taken from Ludacris' deep and thought-provoking song "Blueberry Yum Yum."

Kurt hasn’t been able to fall asleep since Sebastian was actually effective at snaring Blaine a month ago, not really. He drops off eventually, sure, but it’s a very slow process, and waking up in the middle of the night effectively screws him over on the whole falling-back-to-sleep front. Tonight is one of those nights, so he’s standing at the stove warming milk to help him in a last-ditch attempt to just be able to go the fuck to sleep and _stay_ asleep, when he hears hysterical laughter coming from the back yard. 

It’s 3:00 am on a Thursday night; no one should be out there. But when he opens the kitchen door to investigate, Sam and Finn are sitting under the old oak tree, two ropes of different length hanging from the sturdiest low branch the only indicator that Kurt used to swing there every day when he was little and his mom was still around. Kurt is about to call out to them, ask what’s going on, when he sees a flash of flame - Sam has sparked a lighter, and is holding it up to what looks like a cigarette until the end glows cherry-red in the dark.

 _But Sam doesn’t smoke_ , Kurt thinks, frowning as he watches, eyes straining against the faint light from the street lamps filtering through from the front of the house, as Sam exhales and passes the cigarette to Finn.

And that’s when Kurt understands what he’s seeing.

“Are you guys smoking _marijuana_?” he calls through the screen door, because even though he can’t sleep, he’s still _tired_ , and his brain is so bad at filtering things before they reach his mouth lately. He does have the presence of mind, however, to pitch his voice so it won't carry back into the house and up the stairs to his dad and Carole's bedroom.

“What? No, dude,” Finn calls back, scrambling to stub the - Kurt is pretty sure it’s a joint - out on the tree trunk.

Sam is apparently not caught up in the moment or something (Kurt doesn’t know; he’s never been _high_ before), because he ignores what Finn said, laughs, and says, “Totally, dude, do you want a hit?”

“Um, no thanks,” says Kurt, but Sam continues on like he didn’t hear him, or like he maybe just didn’t pay attention.

“It totally helps you sleep, dude, you get so relaxed and shit,” Sam says, fumbling to get the joint from Finn and light it again. “I know you’ve been having trouble sleeping.”

“Have I been _that_ obvious?” Kurt asks. He knew he’d been having a problem, but for Sam to notice it...

“A little bit,” Sam says, beckoning Kurt over.

He hesitates, but then Finn says, “Hey, can you bring some milk out here? My throat’s kind of scratchy,” so he sighs and goes back in to split the mostly-warmed milk between three cups. 

Kurt carries them out through the muggy summer night to the tree, crouching down carefully once he gets there so that he doesn’t get his pajamas dirty. “Here,” he says, passing mugs to Sam and Finn, trying not to breathe in too deeply and accidentally inhale smoke. He’s not sure how this works, but it can’t be good for his voice, and with NYADA coming up soon...

“Thanks,” Finn says, knocking back a gulp of the milk. Now that Kurt’s closer, he can see Finn swallowing. Two years ago, he would have found this titillating. Now it’s just like watching a sibling, which is... Honestly, it’s refreshing.

And then Kurt happens to look at Sam, who is inhaling yet again - the joint is about half-gone, Kurt guesses, but of course he doesn’t really know - and the way his mouth wraps around the paper and his jaw works as he inhales, and. Well. It's not like watching Finn swallow milk.

Kurt is only human, after all. Human, and very tired, so if he stares while Sam pulls the joint away from his mouth and the edges of his lips tighten while he holds in the smoke, then relax again as he exhales, tongue protruding slightly as he does so? Well. It’s understandable. Right?

“Kurt?” Sam says, which makes him belatedly realize that Sam’s been asking him a question on the exhale. He has no idea what, though, so he just nods and hums. And then suddenly Sam is passing him the joint. He’s so surprised that he takes it automatically. “You hold it between your fingers,” Sam says, demonstrating with his now-free hand. “And you put it in your mouth and inhale. Make sure you do it with your throat and not just your mouth, so it goes into your lungs. Otherwise it doesn’t work.”

“Um,” Kurt says, because he wasn’t honestly planning on doing, you know, _this_.

“You don’t have to, dude,” Finn says. His eyes are slitted, his head leaning back against the tree trunk. “We’re totally cool with it if you don’t feel comfortable with smoking.”

Kurt bristles. He knows that Finn didn't mean to imply anything by what he said, but he still feels challenged. Instead of responding to Finn - or Sam - he tentatively puts the joint to his lips, wrapping them around it tight, feeling the paper, damp from Sam and Finn’s mouths - _oh god, it’s been in their mouths, is that weird?_ \- crush slightly from the pressure of his own mouth. Sam holds the lighter to the end of the joint, flicking it on. “Breathe in,” he urges, quietly, and Kurt does.

The smoke is thick, hot, and jarring, and strangely sweet-tasting on Kurt’s tongue as it furls down into his lungs. It rests, heavy and foreign inside of him until his continuous inhale catches on something and he coughs, pulling the joint away from his mouth and feeling the smoke chase back up his windpipe and spill from his mouth as he coughs again.

“Drink some milk,” Finn says, and Kurt barely registers that his brother’s hand is rubbing his back, slowly and steadily, just gently enough to help him calm his breathing. "Seriously, Kurt, it will help."

So Kurt does. After passing the joint on to Finn, he takes a sip, and then another, and then another, until his throat feels smoother, like his lungs aren't trying to crawl out of his body with the smoke. He feels like he probably should be freaking out – he just smoked _pot_ , for goodness sake; he'd never thought of himself as the kind of person who would smoke _anything_ before – but he's not panicking. He doesn't want any more, not right now, not with his dad and Carole asleep upstairs. But in the future, maybe at a party, maybe when his dad is in DC with Carole? Maybe then he'll try this again.

Out of the corner of his eye, Kurt catches Sam staring at him, but Sam looks away before Kurt can focus completely on his face.

Kurt finishes the rest of his milk and stands up. "Night, Finn, Sam," he says, and goes inside to rinse out the milk saucepan and go to bed.

Somehow, he manages to drop off just minutes after his head hits the pillow.

+++

Kurt finally makes it out of bed close to eleven. Finn always snores loudly, and Kurt can hear him even through his closed bedroom door as he tiptoes down the hall, but when he gets to the living room, Sam is sprawled out on the couch, bowl of cereal nestled on his lap and a wiimote on the couch arm behind his head.

"Hey," Sam says, nodding his head at the spot by his feet, lifting them into the air as he does so. "Sleep okay?"

"Yeah, actually," Kurt says, hesitating a moment before going to sit down in the spot Sam's cleared for him. Sam lets his feet drop back down. This thing – this resting on other people thing that Sam has – it's relatively new. Kurt isn't opposed, exactly, but he doesn't really know what to make of it.

"This okay, dude?" he asks, and when Kurt nods, he grins. "So last night was fun, huh?"

Kurt rolls his eyes. "I was there for all of eight minutes, Sam."

"Huh." Sam lifts his head up a bit, to eat another spoonful of cereal. "Felt like longer than that."

"Well," Kurt says, raising an eyebrow at Sam. "You were kind of, um."

"Stoned?" Sam laughs. "Yeah, kind of." He looks at Kurt expectantly. "So what did you think?"

"I only had one – you know," Kurt hedges, because he's honestly not sure how he feels about the whole thing. But Sam's giving him a great _yeah, and?_ look, so he rolls his eyes and says, "It was okay, I guess."

"Sweet, dude," Sam says, grinning his dopey little grin, and god. Kurt doesn't have the excuse of no sleep to back up this little fixation he has right now, so he really needs to look away. "If you think you might want to do it again, just let me know, okay?"

Kurt clears his throat against its sudden dryness. Suddenly, doing it again is a lot more attractive. "I'll um. I'll be sure to do that." 

"Cool." Sam moves his cereal bowl off of his stomach and onto the floor, swinging his legs down and sitting up properly, on the cushion next to Kurt. "I'm in the mood for something simple, want to duke it out on Mario Kart?"

"Yeah, sure. You set the wiimotes up and I'll put the game in?"

Kurt thinks that Sam touches his elbow as he gets up to get everything organized, but he can't be sure.

+++

Two weeks later, Burt and Carole go to DC, and Kurt, Sam, and Finn all are pulling double shifts at Hummel Tires & Lube to make up for Burt's absence.

Sam and Kurt are closing up, covering for Finn, who has a date with Rachel, when Sam gets a phone call. "Uh, I don't have to answer this," he tells Kurt, but they're almost done so Kurt shrugs and gestures for him to go ahead and take it. Sam goes into the office and closes the door.

When he comes back out, Kurt's finished scrubbing the last of the oil from a leaky old junker off the floor and is just making sure everything is put back where it needs to be. "Everything okay?" Kurt asks, once he's satisfied everything is in order.

"Yeah," Sam says. "Uh, Puck has a new supply of, um, stuff. Would you maybe be interested in checking it out?"

"I'm hardly interested in porn, Samuel," Kurt says, dryly. "Especially the kind Puck would get."

Sam reddens. "That's not the kind of stuff I meant," he says, awkwardly. "I don't like the kind of porn Puck watches either. I meant, you know…" He trails off, then mimes smoking quickly.

Kurt's eyes widen, even as he files away Sam's comment about Puck's porn for a future conversation (namely: have they _watched_ it together? Secondly, and something Kurt will only bring up if and when they're not sober: what kind of porn does Sam like?). " _Oh_ ," he says. "Oh. Um."

"I don't want to like, pressure you or anything," Sam rushes to say. "I just think it would be fun to, you know, smoke with you if you ever felt like you might want to, you know, do that."

"Why do you want to smoke with me, though?" Kurt asks, honestly curious.

Sam rolls his eyes. "Um, because you're my friend?" he says. "We're kind of bros, right? Like, I see you before you get your hair all fixed up and I walk in on you doing your moisturizing stuff all the time and you've seen me snoring on your couch and like, we've spent most of the summer together at this point, so I like to think we are, anyway."

"Well, when you put it that way," Kurt drawls, but he's smiling. And the thing is – he isn't opposed to trying again, not really. Not as long as he's in a situation he's completely comfortable in, which, as Sam inadvertently pointed out, isn't that difficult to come by. "Um, I wouldn't have to smoke with like, Puck, right?"

Sam grins, bigger than Kurt's ever seen him grin before – which is a _feat_. "We totally don't have to smoke with Puck," he says, clapping an arm around Kurt's shoulders. "He's obnoxious when he's high, anyway."

"Well, then." Kurt half-shrugs. "Let's do it."

They stop by Puck's on the way home. He meets them in the driveway because his mom and sister are inside, and passes Sam a paper bag. "Don't smoke it all at once," he tells them, winking. 

"Thanks, man," Sam tells him, holding his fist out for a bump. "We should hang soon."

"I'm cleaning a pool out in Harrod next week," Puck says. "Huge house. Family's gone for the month. You could come with. You too, Hummel. If you want."

"We'll let you know," Sam promises, and waves as he rolls up the window.

"So you didn't have to pay him?" Kurt asks as he backs out of the drive. He doesn't really know how this works, but popular culture has taught him that money is usually part of the transaction.

"I used to babysit his sister," Sam says, and when Kurt glances at him out of the corner of his eyes, Sam's pink with embarrassment. "You know, back when we were living in the motel. When I needed to let loose I'd watch her while his mom was out playing bingo and he was out with Lauren. He'd give me stuff instead of paying me. We have an understanding."

"And now?"

Sam's quiet for a moment, then says, "Look, we're bros. I got him some connections with the Dominos I used to work at right before my family moved to Lexington – a lot of people order it when they have the munchies. So we're solid until I have more of an income."

Kurt nods, but he's otherwise silent until they pull into his garage. They both sit, without so much as unbuckling, for a little while. Eventually, Kurt speaks. "So um, Finn should be gone until really late," he says, glancing at Sam. "Since Dad and Carole are gone and Rachel's dads have that supper club thing they do going on. He'll probably be out till close to two. Did you want to, um, wait for him?"

"Nah," Sam says. "He's probably getting laid, so like… he can have that and we can have this." He winks at Kurt, and Kurt's stomach clenches. Weird.

"So, where do we do this?"

"We can air out basically anywhere before your parents get home," Sam points out. "If that's a concern. But we can also go outside if you want."

"Probably not," Kurt says, because it's still light outside and he's pretty sure one of their neighbors is having a cookout party tonight, judging by the number of cars on the street.

Sam nods for a moment, before unbuckling. "I have an idea," he tells Kurt, opening his door, so Kurt gets out, too. He clicks the garage door control so that it closes, then raises his eyebrows at Sam, who wraps a hand around his wrist. Suddenly, Kurt is hot all over in a way that is totally unrelated to the generic heat of an unairconditioned garage in the middle of summer. He shakes himself, mentally, and focuses as Sam tugs him into the house. As soon as he can, Kurt tugs his wrist free – Sam raises an eyebrow at that, but ultimately says nothing as he leads them into the bathroom that Kurt and Finn and now Sam share. 

"You wanted to do this now, right?" Sam asks, looking suddenly uncertain.

Kurt considers this question for a moment, before deciding yet again that yes, he's going to do this. "If I didn't, I would have told you," he says, and Sam smiles _that smile_ again.

Well.

Sam glances around the bathroom for a moment. It's large, with a walk-in shower and two sinks. "One of us can sit on the toilet," he says, after a beat. "But I should go grab a kitchen chair or something."

"I can get my stool," Kurt offers, because he might as well be proactive in this process if he's going to go through with the rest of it. "The one I use when I do my moisturizing stuff."

"Great, dude," Sam says, smiling. "I can get everything else set up if you want to go ahead and grab that."

Kurt nods. He's feeling a little jittery, if he's completely honest with himself, but it's mostly anticipation –he is going into this thing _planning_ on doing it. He's not sure what will happen after he's smoked, not even whether he'll manage to get high (Sam's been telling him about smoking off and on since that night two weeks ago; one thing Kurt's learned is that not everyone feels the effects their first time. This won't technically be his first time, but he only had one hit before, so… well. He doesn't know what to expect). Actors should be open to new experiences, though, and Kurt really does enjoy spending time with Sam. He's shown Sam some of the finer points of fashion and of automotive care; it's only right that Sam gets to show him some of his hobbies. Right?

By the time Kurt gets back into the bathroom, he's worked through everything and, although he's still apprehensive, he's totally on board with trying this out.

Sam has two cups, both full of water, on the counter by the sink and he's wetting a towel when Kurt gets in. After Kurt sets the stool down, Sam passes him the damp towel. "Shove this under the door, okay? It will help keep any smell from getting out," he says, so Kurt does so as Sam opens the tiny window. 

"So this is it," Kurt jokes, perching on the edge of the stool.

Sam grins at him, pulling the paper bag that Puck gave them from the big pocket on his work overalls – which makes Kurt realize that they're still in their work clothes. It's probably better that they get the smell on them than any of his regular clothes, though; if it lingers, he can always say that the smell came from a car they worked on or something, so he doesn't point out that they're both kind of gross right now. There are somehow no obvious grease stains, at least, so he's not too worried about getting anything on furniture.

"Puck pre-rolls joints for me," Sam says, taking one out of the bag. "Because I'm so bad at doing it myself, and I don't have any bongs or one-hitters or whatever. You okay with that?"

"I've never tried anything else," Kurt points out. "I won't know what I'm missing, if I am missing anything. So we're okay."

"Great," Sam says, grinning, and then he's producing a lighter from somewhere. "Do you remember how this works?"

Kurt's lips quirk; an almost-smile. "Yeah, of course."

"Do you want the first hit, then?" Sam asks, earnestly, holding out the stuff, and Kurt can't think of any reason not to, so he takes it and holds the joint to his lips, tentatively. He takes a deep breath, exhales slowly, and then sparks the lighter, holding the flame up to the tip of the joint. "Breathe slow," Sam says, quietly. "And deep. If you're careful, you won't cough."

And Kurt doesn't, even though the smoke is just as hot as last time. He's more prepared, mentally, and Sam's advice must be good, too, because he feels less like the smoke is clawing through his lungs and more like he's just stepped a lot closer to a campfire than usual – albeit a campfire with sweet yet oddly spicy smoke. 

When he can't take anymore, he moves the joint from his lips. The end is still glowing somewhat, so he passes it to Sam, who grins at him. "Hold it as long as you can," Sam tells him, even as he brings the joint up to his own mouth. "The high will get deeper quicker if you do."

Kurt manages to count to seven, almost eight, before the smoke becomes overpowering and he has to let it out, but he only coughs a little at the very end, and he counts that as a win. Sam's mouth is preoccupied in that his impossibly long circumference of his lips are wrapped tight and small around the end of the joint, but his eyes crinkle at the corners when Kurt finishes blowing out his hit. Kurt chooses to interpret that as Sam approving of his hit, too.

Sam's lungs are apparently impossibly capable of holding deep breaths for ridiculously long periods of time since he started swimming, and Kurt counts the seconds between Sam passing the joint back to him and Sam slowly, slowly pushing the thick pungent smoke out in a steady stream, lips again funneled into a tight O. 

It's a lot more seconds than Kurt managed, that's for damn sure.

He gets ready for his second hit, marveling at the way that the mouth end of the joint is now mingled with their combined spit - _it's like we were kissing_ , his wicked evil brain supplies before he can focus on _not_ sexualizing this new(ish) experience with a platonicy platonic friend, but he mentally lectures himself on the inappropriateness of these thoughts – he's definitely learned his lesson in gay thoughts about straight men since sophomore year – even as he flicks the lighter to relight the tip of the joint, which has gone out while he stared at Sam.

They smoke it quickly, or at least it feels that way to Kurt, Sam ashing it into one of the cups of water every so often. Once it's about three-quarters gone, Sam lets the cherry burn out and he sets the rest of it on the sink. "We can finish that later," he tells Kurt, and Kurt marvels at how Sam is smiling impossibly widely. "But I wanted to make sure you're doing all right."

Kurt's had four, maybe five hits. Maybe seven. He lost count. He doesn't know what being high feels like, obviously, since he's never been there before, but he's definitely feeling _something_. During Sam's last hit, Kurt catches himself inhaling at the same time as Sam, and holding his breath until smoke starts spilling out of Sam's mouth. Breathing with Sam, Kurt thinks, feels completely natural.

But that might just be the pot talking.

The world is just a little bit jittery, sort of like how Kurt felt when he was opening his NYADA letters, except it's a little bit calmer, less oppressively desperate. When he breathes in, it feels _fresh_ even though the bathroom is really incredibly smoky now – Kurt realizes belatedly that Sam's closed the window, so instead of answering his question, he asks, "Why did you close the window?"

"So this could last longer," Sam says, leaning back before apparently remembering that he's sitting on a _toilet_. "Hotboxing, if you will."

The air smells good, kind of like how the inside of Kurt's mouth tastes, and it's hazy. Kurt finds himself squinting to see better, which doesn't really help. "Okay," he says, and laughs. "I'm so _good_ right now."

Sam laughs, too. "You're high," he says, voice triumphant. "This is fantastic."

"You’re a wickedly bad influence," Kurt says, but he says it lazily, obviously joking.

Sam reddens just the same. "I feel bad about doing this in your dad's house," he blurts. "Especially since he and Carole took me in and stuff."

"Whatever," Kurt says, and since he really wants Sam to realize that it doesn't matter, that he's not being disrespectful or whatever because as far as Kurt knows, Finn (or Kurt, obviously) has smoked with Sam every time he's done it at their house, he puts a reassuring hand on Sam's knee. "It's like, so okay."

"Good," Sam says, leaning in towards Kurt incrementally. But maybe Kurt's just imagining it. "Do you um, need anything? Food or water or, you know, something?"

"I'm good," says Kurt. "Really good. Did you? Need anything, that is?"

"Nah, just wanted to check," Sam says. Kurt's really relieved that he's smiling so much lately – like he's doing right now – because when Sam was walking around looking sad all the time earlier in the year after that whole thing with Mercedes went down, Kurt just. He didn't like how quiet and frowny Sam was all the time then. So this smiling thing is good.

"I like your smile," Kurt says, and oh, hey, he hadn't planned on saying that. Oh well.

Sam grins. "This one?" he asks, pointing at his face, and when Kurt nods, he adds, "I'm glad."

Kurt really feels like lounging back against something, but he can't because he's in a stool. He's feeling really droopy, though, like he kind of wants to curl into a little Kurt puddle on the couch or the floor or something. Not really the floor, though. That's gross. He tells Sam about wanting to be a puddle, though, and Sam nods, importantly.

"You're entering the slouch phase, young padawan," Sam says, sagely. "Wanna finish this up and then go watch a movie or something?"

"Yes," Kurt says. "Yes, I would like to finish this up and then watch the Project Runway marathon that starts at eight."

Sam laughs, a deep and pleasing chuckle, but he doesn't argue. He just passes the rest of the joint to Kurt.

The paper at the end has dried out, mostly, so Kurt guesses they've been talking for a while. He can't really tell, though. Time doesn't really seem to make much sense right now. He finds himself oddly saddened that he's no longer sharing spit with Sam, which is just a gross and weird thought, so he discards it with the flick of the lighter. 

His pull of smoke is deeper than ever, and though a little bit escapes when he passes the joint back to Sam, he breathes it still deeper when Sam takes his hit, because there he is breathing with Sam without meaning to again. It catches against his lung when he runs out of space to breathe in again, and he coughs, smoke coming out in a thick grayish-white burst that eddies slightly with Sam's breath.

Sam purses his lips and blows his own stream of smoke through the cloud that Kurt just made, even as he passes Kurt the ash-less glass of water, and even though Kurt's still coughing he can't look away from the way the smoke swirls together before dissipating gently through the room, and by the time he's done coughing he feels like laughing at how marvelous the way the smoke coils around the room really is.

One more hit each and the joint is near the end of its life. Sam offers it to Kurt for the last hit, but he shakes his head after eyeing how close the cherry is from the part that goes into his mouth. "I don't want it to burn me," he says.

Sam nods, and then says, "Well, did you want more? We could light another after I take this, or –"

"Or we could save it for later. You know. The rest of the stuff," Kurt says, because he knows he'll want to pursue this feeling again. He's so loose right now, apart from the part of him that is still fixating on how much getting burnt by the last hit of the joint would _suck_ , and it's just. It's really nice, to not worry about much and to feel this – it's probably best described as _thrumming_ in his body, but in the best possible way. 

Relief. That's the word he's looking for. He isn’t obsessing about how to present himself and how to protect himself right now. He's mostly obsessing about the way Sam's fingers are holding onto the end of the joint and how his mouth is shaping around the words that he says and how his eye are staring into Kurt's without blinking. And maybe he should be worried about obsessing about this, because it’s _Sam_ , and Sam is straight, but even that knowledge doesn't bother Kurt right now. 

He starts paying attention to the words that Sam's lips are slowly forming, instead of just the movement of his lips, because he realizes that he should listen to his friend when his friend is talking. Sam is saying, "Yeah, dude, totally. Do you want any of this last hit, though? I could pass you some of the smoke if you want to share it."

Kurt's not entirely sure what Sam means by that but he nods anyway, because Sam has had a lot of great ideas tonight so this is sure to be another one. 

Sam holds the joint up to his lips one last time, and Kurt pays special attention to the way Sam's cheeks hollow slightly as he pulls smoke through the now-crumpled paper at the end. If this is the last hit Sam takes tonight, Kurt wants to remember the sight, Sam's hair falling forward as he leans into the breath, lips pursed around the white paper of the joint, his eyelashes falling across his cheek as his eyes fall shut at the end of the drag.

Almost too quickly, Sam is dropping the end of the joint into the cup of water and ashes. Kurt sighs, weirdly disappointed by the action –

\- but then Sam is surging forward, taking Kurt's face in his hands, and _fitting his mouth over Kurt's, what the fuck_. Kurt's mouth falls open in surprise…

… and then smoke starts coiling in from Sam's mouth and he understands. He inhales, and Sam's lips are positioned over him in a way that he's getting smoke and suction at the same time, which is just. It's really overwhelming, especially considering his current state, and Kurt really does _not_ want to examine anything about the way his stomach is, like, fluttering in a way that he's pretty sure has nothing to do with his high (because he's totally high), so he pulls away, staring at Sam as they both slowly exhale the last of the smoke out of their lungs.

Sam is grinning at him, which is what clues Kurt in on the fact that Sam is probably really fucking stoned right now, so he makes the immediate decision to not worry about the fallout from this kiss-like behavior until they're both sober.

He gets up to push the window open, and Sam turns the shower on hot, "So it catches the smoke and makes it stop floating around everywhere."

Kurt's not entirely sure that smoke works that way, but he just shrugs and tries to not think about how (straight, straighter, straightest) Sam's lips felt on his own.

Once they're satisfied that the room is empty of smoke, Kurt febrezes everything.

"Dude, do you have the munchies yet?" Sam asks, as Kurt puts the febreze back under the sink.

"I could eat," Kurt allows. "You?"

Sam nods. "Let's go demolish some carrot sticks, bro."

Kurt dissolves laughing, and since they're both standing, he collapses against Sam for support. "Not that I have any experience in these matters," he says, "but I’m pretty sure you're the only person in the history of high people who has health food munchies."

"Hey," Sam says, throwing an arm around Kurt's shoulder. "I can't let myself go just because I like to let loose every now and then."

Kurt is struck by a sudden urge to just kiss Sam, so obviously his solution is to squirm out of Sam's hold and open the bathroom door. "Let's get you those carrot sticks," he says, and by the time they've made it to the kitchen, he's (mostly) forgotten about the urge.

Mostly.

When they finally make it to the Project Runway marathon – an older season, with all of Kurt's favorite judges, and even though Kurt already knows who wins and who gets eliminated in every episode, that's probably all he can handle right now - Sam sits down on the cushion next to Kurt. Again. Kurt is hyperaware of Sam's body heat as Tim Gunn tells Rami to make it work. As the episode progresses, Sam sprawls out more – Kurt can identify; his posture is probably the worst it's been in years at this point, but he's just _so_ relaxed outside of the parts of him that are closest to Sam – and by the time the wrestling girls get their fittings, Sam's leg is flush against his.

Yeah, it's definitely a good thing that Kurt's seen this season at least twice already.

+++

Kurt wakes up to light streaming in through the bay windows of his living room. Squinting, he tries to sit up straight – and winces. Apparently he slept on the couch all night, and he has the aches to prove it.

Also, Sam seems to be fast asleep on his shoulder. Sam, who is _drooling_ on Kurt's sleeve. Kurt would be thoroughly disgusted, but at least it's his work clothes and not one of his nice shirts. 

As he wakes up further, he sits bold upright. Sam's head slips off Kurt's shoulder, and Kurt winces, but Sam, luckily, does not wake up. Kurt gets up more carefully, cradling Sam's head with one hand until he can wedge a pillow, rather than his own body, under it, before sneaking off upstairs for a long shower.

He avoids Sam for most of the rest of the day. He doesn't want to listen to Sam get upset about the kiss-thing last night. He doesn't want to think about how he kind of liked it.

He just wants to forget.

Sam is apparently having none of that, though, given how he corners Kurt when he's in the middle of making dinner. "Are you upset about last night?" he asks Kurt, straight off.

"Um, what?" Kurt says, holding the sauce spoon suspended over the pot of bolognese he's making in shock, because this question was the last thing he expected to hear from Sam. In fact, it's the question he's been trying to get the nerve up to ask Sam all day. 

"The smoking," Sam clarifies, and his expression is so _earnest_ that Kurt can't help but chuckle fondly.

"No, Sam, I'm not regretting that," he promises, putting the spoon back in the pot and focusing on stirring it.

"Then why are you avoiding me?"

"I thought that you might, you know," Kurt says, and he can feel himself flushing, which is not what he wants to do at _all_ right now. 

"I don't know what you're hinting at," Sam says, flatly.

"Be the upset one?" Kurt says, and after a very long moment of Sam being silent, Kurt glances up at him.

Sam looks entirely confused. "Why on earth would I be upset? I'm the one who suggested this whole thing."

"When you shared the um, the hit with me," Kurt says, forcing himself to maintain eye contact with Sam.

Sam keeps looking confused for a moment before his face clears. "Oh! The shotgunning."

"I guess? I don't know the word for it." He starts to turn back to the stove.

"Kurt," Sam says, and Kurt looks back at him, raising an eyebrow. "I'm the one who offered to do that. It's seriously cool, I wouldn't have suggested it if I wasn't down with that."

"Well," Kurt says, finally smiling, even if it is a twisted half-smile. He's not going to let himself read too far into that statement. He's not going to fall for another straight jock. He's not. "If you say so."

"I do," Sam insists, earnestly, and Kurt can't help but give him a real smile at that.

It may be just Kurt's imagination, but he could swear that it looks like Sam's holding back from saying something else.

+++

Sam ends up dragging Kurt with him to the pool that Puckerman's cleaning. "It's an opportunity to swim – or lay out and look at magazines of whatever, if that's what you'd rather do – without a lot of loud kids around," he points out, as a final selling point.

Well, that and "Puck will have weed. You know, if you want to do that again."

It's not like Kurt wants to smoke with Puck, not really, but he wants to smoke with Sam again and he's not sure that he can handle being alone with the other boy when he does so. It's why he hasn't suggested they smoke the rest of what Puck gave them last time, not yet. 

So they go to the pool and get high, Kurt and Sam passing a joint, Puck smoking one of his own "because I'm a bigger badass than you two."

Kurt doesn't mind Puck's ego. He's too busy carefully focusing on not noticing the way the paper is damp from Sam's mouth, the way that it crushes differently when Sam takes a hit than when Kurt does. He doesn’t think at all about how that might translate to Sam's kissing style and what Mercedes may or may not have told him about it in the past, when they used to gush about their respective boyfriends to each other a year ago. He doesn't.

His high hits quicker and stronger than the last time, so when he takes his last drag off of the joint – Sam doesn't offer to share the last hit this time, and Kurt doesn't ask – he actually tugs off his shirt and jumps into the pool, relishing in the feel of the cool water against his sun-warmed skin, and in how buoyant he feels when he bounces from one end to the other. Usually, Kurt avoids chlorine like the plague, but Puck finished cleaning the pool before they got high and Kurt is in too good of a place right now to fixate on how dry his skin will probably be in the morning.

After Sam stubs the very last of the joint out on the pool deck, he slips into the water, too. Puck observes them lazily, finishing up his own joint – for some reason, Kurt isn't as fixated on breathing with him as he was with Sam last week – before standing. "I'm fucking hungry," he says. "But the house is empty. You dudes hungry? I'm going to go try to find a 7-11 or a McDonalds or whatever."

Kurt frowns. Something doesn't sound quite right there. "You're not going to drive, are you?" 

Puck laughs, not meanly. "Harrod is a small-ass town. I figure I can walk."

Walking sounds like the _worst_ idea to Kurt right now, but whatever floats Puck's boat, seriously. "Have fun with that."

"Yeah, but do you want me to grab you anything?"

"Nah," Sam calls. "I'm so good, dude, I don't need food right now."

Puck shrugs. "Suit yourself," he says, waving as he meanders off.

Sam immediately turns to Kurt, giggling so hard that it's his turn to collapse against Kurt. Kurt feels the warm of Sam's body through the cold of the water and pretends like he doesn't. His arms go out to support Sam and keep him from falling down just the same, though. "He is going to get so lost."

Kurt hadn't considered that possibility. "Sam," he says. "You are so right. Oh my god, we're stranded at some stranger's house. What if they come home and we're still here?"

Sam rolls his eyes. "They won' t be back for another week and a half," he reminds Kurt. "We'll be fine." He grins wickedly at Kurt. "We have an entire pool to ourselves and we are, if I may say so, completely stoned. What should we do next?"

Since Sam is still pressed against him, Kurt's mind immediately flashes to pushing Sam against the wall of the pool and kissing him hard, shoving his hand into Sam's swim trunks and jerking him off until he dirties the just-cleaned pool with spreading come, which is the worst. Kurt hates his mind and the way it fixates on things that are never going to happen with boys who will never like boys. "I don't know," he says, finally, mouth dry. God, he's so glad that he's probably too high to get hard right now, that would be so awkward. Sam is close enough to notice if that happens.

"Hmm," Sam says, falling silent as he obviously studies Kurt's face for a long moment. He swims over to the edge of the pool, then hoists himself out to retrieve another joint. "Puck had twice as much as us," he points out. "Want to see if it feels any different doing it in the pool?"

And Kurt does, he really truly does, because if the water feels this good now, it can only feel better when his lungs are filling with the thick sweet smoke. And if he starts coughing, there's a lot of stuff he can drink. Maybe it's not the best quality water for drinking, but – there are options of drinkable things that he can drink. "Light it," he tells Sam, and Sam does, holding the lighter against the tip and drawing in deep, chest expanding with his breath. Kurt thinks of what it would be like if Sam's flesh were transparent, if he could see the smoke swirling into the tiniest alveoli and filtering into Sam's bloodstream, lighting his whole body up with a deeper high.

He's been so caught up in this thought that he doesn't realize Sam's been trying to pass him the joint until Sam is physically holding it up to Kurt's lips for him. So he wraps his lips around the paper, and if they brush against Sam's fingers, well. Sam doesn't jerk away, so Kurt can't bring himself to care. "Breathe," Sam whispers, the smoke from his hit filtering out through his mouth as he talks.

So Kurt breathes. He draws the smoke in, slow and steady, deeper and deeper, until he can't take anymore. And then, grinning at Sam, he dunks underwater, hair be damned.

When his lungs feel like they're going to burst hot and acrid all over the place, from lack of breathing and from the smoke, Kurt pushes the air and smoke out into the water, opening his eyes so he can watch what happens. The bubbles are grey, smoky, as they float to the top of the pool.

"That was so fucking badass," Sam says, once he comes up for air. "It's your hit again." Sam's eyes are so bloodshot it's funny, but Kurt's sure that his are the same, with the weed and with the chlorine he just exposed them to. He reaches for the joint, but Sam stops him. "Dude, your hands are so wet," he says. "Let me."

And he holds his hand out to Kurt's mouth again. And maybe Kurt's lips definitely wrap around the pads of Sam's fingers, just briefly, before he gets his mouth situated right.

With his free hand, Sam brings the lighter up and sparks it, and Kurt breathes deep, holding his mouth around the end of the joint even when he's done because he _likes_ this contact and he's too damned high to even try and deny it.

Eventually, though, he has to exhale, and he pulls away reluctantly, maneuvering so he's shoulder-to-shoulder against the side of the pool with Sam. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back, funneling his mouth into an o and _pushing_ the smoke out, like he's a dragon.

When he opens his eyes, he notices Sam staring at him, at his chest or maybe his neck or possibly his mouth. Kurt can't really tell. "Sam," he says, because he really likes the sound of Sam's name. "Sam. Sam Sam Sam."

"Kurt," Sam laughs. "You are so stoned."

"You are too!" Kurt says, accusatorily. "You are stoned, too!"

"True," Sam says, smiling crookedly at Kurt, sticking the joint back in his mouth for another hit, and now it's Kurt's turn to watch Sam as he draws in, watch the way the muscles in his neck work and the way his lips cradle the joint so carefully and the way his eyes flutter shut like he's about to come - (where did _that_ thought come from?) – as his lungs reach full capacity, the way the corners of his mouth tighten as if to seal the smoke in when he's done inhaling.

Again, Kurt finds himself holding his breath with Sam, breathing out when Sam does.

What he doesn't notice is that on his own exhale, a distinct, yet quiet, " _Fuck_ " slips out.

Sam turns to him immediately, the last of his smoke coming out in one thick burst – he must have been startled, Kurt thinks, hazily, or coughing. "What?"

"Shotgun me," Sam says, quietly, intensely, meeting Kurt's gaze directly.

Kurt wants to protest – he really doesn't want any awkwardness at home when Sam is sober and, well, sober – but Sam is looking at him so intently, and Kurt is so, so curious about how Sam's body and lips might feel, since he was too surprised to really register it last week and he's too high to deny his curiosity anymore. So he nods once, carefully, opening his mouth slightly for the joint.

After he's taken a lot – some into his lungs, some just into his mouth, he nods at Sam, who pulls the joint away and then leans in and fits his mouth over Kurt's. Kurt, doing his best to keep the smoke in his lungs _in his lungs_ , opens his mouth so that Sam can inhale the smoke that he's keeping just in there. He's not sure if this is exactly how it works, but it seems to be fine, because there's the same suction as before, and there's some part of his brain telling him that breathing someone else's breath is really dangerous because what if you die from lack of oxygen?

At that thought, he starts to pull away, but Sam quickly works an arm – not the one holding the joint – around Kurt's back and holds before his head is more than hands-width away from Sam's. "Breathe out," Sam says, smoke curling from his mouth as he does so, so Kurt does. "Stay here," Sam adds, and Kurt does that, too, because after his long slow exhale he's feeling calmer again.

Sam turns his face away slightly so he can take another hit, and then he's fitting his mouth over Kurt's again. It's different this time, though, because when Sam pushes the smoke forward this time, his tongue pushes through, too.

And even though Kurt is trying to be good and inhale, he can't help but let loose a little noise – of surprise, maybe. That will be what he says when Sam inevitably realizes that he's doing this with a boy, at least.

But Sam doesn't jerk away. He makes a similar noise, and Kurt distantly hears a quick sizzle before Sam's other arm is wrapping around Kurt's back and Sam is drawing Kurt in closer, and there's no way to pretend that this isn't a kiss at this point.

The sizzle must have been the joint hitting the pool, Kurt realizes. Hopefully Puck won't get too pissed at them for ruining both his cleaning job and his weed.

Those thoughts drift away when Sam's tongue brushes against Kurt's own and he feels it with every fiber of his being, his focus suddenly narrowing completely on his points of contact with Sam: Sam's arms around his back, Sam's chest against his own, Sam's mouth and Sam's tongue and now, Kurt's hands curling up around Sam's back and holding onto Sam's shoulders, and then he's losing himself completely in Sam, Sam, Sam.

He knows he'll regret this when they're both sober, but there is no way he's going to pull away now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurt knows he's in trouble. Every time Sam runs a thumb along Kurt's cheek, every time Sam ducks his head before turning it in for a quick kiss, every time Sam's fucking mouth tightens around those goddamn joints they smoke regularly and his cheeks hollow out as he inhales, Kurt is reminded of exactly how in trouble he is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, this fucker keeps on being longer than I plan on it being. Just so everyone knows - I don't, and won't, have a regular schedule for updates, but I _do_ write a little bit (generally between 1000 and 2000 words) each day - questceque_cest makes damn sure of this ;)
> 
> I hope you're enjoying it so far! It's beginning to transfer away from a potsmoking fic and become more of a straight-up Kum fic.

Somehow, they get home without Puck finding out. Kurt goes straight to bed, mind churning with the remnants of the weed and with thoughts, trying to process what happened in the pool.

When he wakes up, there are five texts from Mercedes waiting for him. The first one says, _hey boo, how's your day going?_ The last one says, _kurt I seriously need you to answer me. what is going on with sam?_

The ones in the middle escalate between the two. 

Kurt doesn't know what to say. He doesn't want to lie to Mercedes – she _is_ his best girl – but he also doesn't want to tell her what he and Sam were doing the previous afternoon (kissing, because it was definitely more than shotgunning. And it was by far the best kiss he's ever had, and sure, maybe that was the weed talking, but that doesn't diminish how completely phenomenal Sam's tongue felt stroking into his mouth, the way that Sam tasted of the smoke and the chlorine and faintly of the tomato he'd eaten earlier). 

And that's when he realizes: _I don't know what you're talking about_.

Mercedes response immediately, and Kurt winces at the thought that she might be waiting by her phone for news about… something. _he kept tweeting about how soft your skin is_.

Kurt laughs, fondly, before he remembers that Sam wouldn't text anything like that if he weren't stoned out of his mind. 

_Yeah idk. He was in a weird mood yesterday I guess,_ Kurt replies, which is also not a lie. God, he feels so gross – apparently he forgot to wash off the chlorine last night, which will set his moisturizing routine back _days_. He crawls out of bed, and goes straight into the shower.

He comes out intent on talking to Sam, because like, he really does not want Sam to get upset, or for things to get weird (or, if he's being entirely honest, for the kissing to never happen again), but apparently, between the haze of marijuana smoke and the long hours at the shop, he's lost track of which day it is, because his dad and Carole are just walking into the house when he gets to the first floor to make breakfast and talk to Sam.

And so, instead of clearing the air immediately, he gets the entire run-down on how DC was. Finn and Sam get it too, as they trickle in, and yeah, it's nice, having his dad back – Kurt loves his dad more than anything, and he knows that he's going to miss him come September and college – but he is consciously aware of Sam's presence on the couch next to him, one knee a scant two inches from Kurt's own, body heat reaching him. Kurt has to focus super extra hard to refrain from relaxing and closing that two-inch gap just to be touching part of Sam, and even harder to keep from darting glances at Sam out of the corner of his eye.

He fails miserably on that last count.

After an excruciating hour of the type of family conversation Kurt usually thrives on, his dad goes off to check on how the shop is doing, and Carole heads out to do some shopping – despite Kurt's obviously superior influence, and Sam's fastidious attention to personal health, the kitchen has run towards processed food since she's been gone. It's just easier that way – however much Kurt may or may not like to cook, he's out of practice, and this ensured there'd be dinner every night. He'd meant to restock before his dad got back. He just got, you know, distracted. By Sam, and by smoke.

Sam, who just looked around, maybe to check that Kurt's dad and Carole are really and truly gone, is now running a hand through his hair, shifting from foot to foot, and saying, "Hey, Kurt. Can we maybe talk?"

Kurt's mouth is dry. However much he wanted to have this conversation with Sam when they couldn't conceivably talk about it, he now wants to talk about anything but. He clears his throat. "Of course."

"Backyard?" Sam suggests, and since it's out of the way of everyone, Kurt nods. He doesn't have any expectations of this conversation, but if Sam says he doesn't want to do this kind of thing again – the smoking, or the kissing, or whatever – Kurt doesn't want to be somewhere he's in five times daily. He can't shake the feeling that Sam's going to put the kibosh on the smoking and the shotgunning and everything, mostly because Sam's straight. It's not a good feeling. He shouldn't have let this happen, even though Sam's lips felt so good fitting over his own, even though he knew exactly how to use his smoky tongue, even though Kurt can still feel Sam's phantom fingers, gripping his hips so, so tight for the long minutes before they fell apart, laughing and collapsing into each other, the cool water of the pool shocking as it lapped up higher against his chest than he was used to. The way they crawled out of the pool and flopped onto side-by-side deck chairs. The way Sam may have reached out to brush a finger against Kurt's stomach, or maybe it was just Kurt's imagination.

The humidity of the day after the cool dry air conditioning of the house startles Kurt back into to the present. Sam walks towards the tree where Kurt first caught him and Finn smoking, and plunks down, cross-legged, on an exposed root. Kurt initially leans back against the trunk, but the height difference stemming from that is disconcerting, so he crouches down, feeling the ground to make sure it's dry and not too dirty before sitting gingerly, back against the trunk, half-facing Sam.

"What's up?" he asks, because he knows what's up, but he doesn't want to be presumptuous about what exactly Sam wants to talk about. If he's wrong, it would be so embarrassing. If he's right – he doesn't want to think about the fallout, if he's right. 

Sam scrubs a hand through his already-pretty-messy hair. "So look," he says. "About yesterday."

"Yeah?" Kurt says, and it takes every ounce of his strength to not immediately start apologizing to Sam for everything that happened yesterday. For starters, even though he's sure sober Sam won't like what happened, stoned Sam definitely initiated that kiss and Kurt is so done with apologizing for things that he didn't start, ever since Blaine left him. But – more importantly – everyone starts apologizing immediately in, like, all of the books and movies and that invariably leads to miscommunications and Kurt really wants everything to be as clear as possible.

Sam nods, briefly. "Are you okay with everything that happened? I don't want to be pushing you too far too fast. I mean, it seems like you liked it but I just wanted to be sure."

Kurt hesitates. "Do you remember everything that happened? Even later on?"

"You mean everything in the pool?" Sam asks, and when Kurt nods, slightly, he grins. "Yeah. At least, I'm pretty sure I do. I'll be pretty pissed if I don't, in fact; what I do remember was pretty great."

"I'm okay with everything that happened," Kurt says, finally, and Sam grins. 

"Cool, dude, because I was thinking that we should drive out to an old field – or maybe go camping, but only if you're down with that; I know how important your routine is to you – sometime soon, at night, and smoke up under the stars. I think that'd be really ro- cool."

Kurt's heart sinks a little, because Sam is pretty obviously not talking about the kiss at this point. He probably doesn't remember it, then. Feeling utterly inappropriate, because taking advantage of a friend's stoned state to kiss them when they don't seem inclined to do the same sober is just kind of gross, but Sam is also, well Sam, and his lips are worth any camping trip, Kurt half-shrugs. "That sounds great, Sam."

"Great," Sam says, grinning larger. He leans in and knocks his shoulder against Kurt's and doesn't move away for a long moment.

Kurt tells himself not to read into it.

+++

So… they're doing this. This camping thing. They take it up with Kurt's dad, who raises his eyebrows, but, beyond eliciting promises to check in regularly, says nothing besides giving his permission and suggesting that they invite Finn.

Which they do, but apparently Sam booked the campsite for the same weekend that Finn is taking Rachel to Columbus to see their Shakespeare in the Park performance of the Merchant of Venice. Finn looks sorry, but says that there's nothing to be done, and that if they end up going again, he'll totally join in the next time.

Kurt is getting permanent grooves in the palms of his hands, fingernail marks from all the times he has to clench his fists to keep from reading too much into stuff like Sam accidentally scheduling their camping trip for when Finn has a conflict.

Because Burt got rid of their tent soon after Kurt's mom died, and Kurt doesn't want to accidentally get the smell of pot smoke all over a brand-new tent, they end up borrowing an old, yet perfectly serviceable, two-person tent from Mike Chang. The back of Kurt's Navigator gets loaded up with Carole's old camp stove, enough food to last a week (or at least it feels that way), and enough bedding that Kurt will probably survive the hard ground: mattress pads, sleeping bags, blankets, pillows, even a feather mattress, because Kurt is _going_ to be comfortable on this trip to the wilds of Ohio, and Sam just smiles that smile of his when Kurt insists, ducking his head and nodding.

Sam slips the joints in with Kurt's toiletries – Kurt insisted on a campground with shower facilities – and after they triple-check that they have Kurt's special high-SPF, low-grease sunscreen and newspaper for fire starting, they set out to Salt Fork State Park ("It's got a huge lodge and it's in the middle of summer, Kurt," Sam said. "And some of the most remote campsites in an Ohio state park. People are less likely to run into us there. I'll just say we're not good with noise and we'd like to be further away from people." And Kurt had replied, "Just as long as we're not further away from the toilets and the showers, Samuel Evans.")

It's usually between a three and a half and a four-hour drive, but they make it in three, speeding once they get past Columbus, stopping only for a quick breakfast.

Their campsite, though technically near other campsites, is not near any other campers, so they celebrate successfully setting up the tent and bedding by sharing the first joint of their trip puff-puff-pass, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the picnic table at their site, feet propped on the bench below. 

Kurt's feeling really, really good when they break out some of the prepared food they brought with them - there's uncooked stuff they'll make for dinner, of course, but for now, there's peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on a rich wheat bread, apples, baked chips. He's just high enough that he clearly notices the way that Sam's lips mash against the green skin of the apple, the way they purse up again when he sinks his teeth in, the way they snap together when he pulls his bite away from the fruit. The drop of juice on his lips that he chases with his tongue once he swallows.

Kurt's in trouble, but he's also high and that makes a pretty damn good excuse for now, so he's going to embrace that with all that he's got.

He's not sure whether Sam catches him staring or not, but at one point, when they're halfway through their lunch, he glances over again to see Sam looking at him, a strange expression on his face.

"What is it?" Kurt asks.

Sam seems to shake himself. "Nothing," he says, wiping his hands off on his shorts. "I'm just glad we're here. I like being in Lima with everyone, but it's nice to get away from it all, you know?"

And the thing is, Kurt does know, but his brain is also supplying that it's nice to get away from everything _with Sam_ , which means he basically has to change his thought process or else get into even more trouble. "How much – how many joints do we have?" he asks, and if he leans over a bit, enough to tilt his head onto Sam's shoulder, well. He drove for quite a while this morning, and now he's also definitely not sober. So.

Sam laughs, low in his chest. Kurt can feel the rumble. "Enough," he promises, and they fall silent for a long moment before Sam sits up straight. "I have the _best_ idea," he says, clapping his hands and effectively dislodging Kurt from his resting place. "Let's totally rent a boat."

Kurt pictures it: the rocking of the waves so different from, and yet still so similar to, the pool they were stoned in just over a week ago, a lake he could _jump into_ if it got too hot, smoke curling lazily from their mouths as they soak up the sun and float around in this huge big thing of _water_.

"I'll bring my sun screen and a bunch of granola bars," he says. "As long as you bring more pot."

"I'm two steps ahead of you," Sam laughs, pointing at his backpack leaning against the tent. "That has all of our daily needs, Kurt, do not even worry."

"Never," Kurt promises, and after another weird moment where Sam gets that funny intent look in his eyes when he's glancing over at Kurt, they stand and walk toward the marina.

+++

They get the biggest boat they can, because even though they feel pretty confident operating one, they're still high and only going to be even further gone when they come back in from the lake, and they want to minimize the chance of the boat flipping over. Pontoon effectively rented, they find a secluded inlet, sunny and removed from the water skiers . The floor of this boat has freaking _carpet_ , which is just so ridiculous, but also nice, and Kurt has the grand idea to take one of the spare life preservers – seriously, this boat was built for at least ten – and use it as a pillow, draping his towel over it and the carpet just in case they're actually super gross.

Sam grins when he sees what Kurt's doing. "Can I share?" he asks, flopping down before Kurt can even respond.

"Yes," Kurt says, drily, but the rest of his witty retort is swallowed when Sam pulls out a fresh joint. 

"Want to?" he asks, waving it at Kurt.

" _Yes_ ," Kurt breathes, because he wants to breathe with Sam again, wants to feel more of this beautiful bubbly feeling he has all inside of him – the perfect day, the perfect company, the perfect buzz, and it can only get better when he's got more THC coursing through his system. 

Kurt takes the first hit and he breathes deeper than he's ever done before, and holds it even longer before funneling it out through his mouth and rolling his head to its side so he can watch Sam's profile as Sam presses the joint to his mouth, tapping the end of it with the tip of his tongue before fitting it between his lips and inhaling, the rise of his chest obvious, and lovely. Kurt imagines the smoke swirling through his veins and windpipes and everything, making an entire body of smoke and pot and maybe even sex –

\- and Kurt must be much higher already than he realized, because where in the world did that thought come from?

And then Sam's offering him the joint again and Kurt just wants it to be gone, all smoked up, because even though he wants it, he also doesn’t want it getting in the way of anything – namely, the trend they seem to be on of shotgun-kissing whenever they smoke up.

Which, on second thought, it would actually aid with.

So he takes another huge drag, not even bothering to try and pull it all from his mouth into his lungs, and then, without warning, leans up and over and fits his mouth over Sam's, waiting till it falls open in surprise to let his own lips part so that Sam can suck the smoke from Kurt into himself and god, that mental image is just too much to deal with right now.

He's not sure how exactly Sam will react, because there was basically no warning before this, and Kurt's never initiated before, but Sam moves one of his hands around Kurt until it is strong against back of his head, pulling him closer. The barrier between shotgunning and maybe-kissing is first looming, then behind them, as Sam sucks Kurt's lower lip into his mouth, teasing it between his teeth for a moment, before abandoning the pursuit for stroking his tongue into Kurt's mouth.

Kurt can't keep from moaning quietly, turning more fully in toward Sam, holding the joint carefully out of the way as he brushes his own tongue up against Sam's, questing after more of that sticky-sweet smoke flavor, the tiny remaining hint of apples and peanut butter sandwiches almost overpowered by pot. 

It feels like years – Kurt's hand, which is awkwardly-positioned in order to prevent anything getting burned (or the joint getting lost, if the cherry is out, which is entirely possible if they've really been kissing _that_ long), is getting tired – when they pull apart. Sam, breathing just as heavily as Kurt is, buries his face in Kurt's neck for a hot second before grinning shakily at Kurt and holding his hand out for the joint. A spark of the lighter and a long drag later, he's kicking off his sandals, pulling off his shirt, and jumping off the side of the boat into the lake.

God, he's not jumping in to get away from Kurt, right? Kurt isn't too paranoid that this is what Sam's doing – he's still really fucking blissed out from that hit and that kiss – but it's a very valid concern, so in order to distract himself from the way that Sam's body is just a discoloration under the surface of the lake right now, he has another drag of the joint before carefully stubbing it out and putting it in the strap pocket on Sam's backpack.

When Sam resurfaces, he executes this magnificent hair flip with a quick toss of his head, water droplets flying out as he does so. He swims around to the back of the boat and grabs onto the little platform extending past the safety gate thing and tries to hoist himself up, but collapses, giggling, after two aborted attempts.

"Give me a hand?" he asks Kurt, finally, grinning sheepishly.

Kurt rolls his eyes, but that's mostly because he doesn't want to get up. He's good and comfortable and warm from the sunlight and so, so very high. "You should have thought this through," he says, but he gets up, opens the little door leading to the platform and, bracing himself against the railing, extends an arm to Sam.

This time, hoisting Sam up works, if getting him far enough up that he can pull his legs up onto the side of the boat and thrust himself forward so that he's lying awkwardly, one foot still over the edge of the pontoon, dripping all over the carpet, his head twisted enough that he can grin wickedly up at Kurt. He starts pushing himself up. "I did," he says. "It was almost as effective as a cold shower."

"Wait," Kurt says, blinking. "What?"

"Um, you're like, a really good kisser," Sam says, shrugging, like this is totally old news, but Kurt is still _so far behind_ here. It's totally confusing. He didn't know that there were people who were only totally straight when they were sober, but who were kind of into dudes when they were stoned, but apparently it's possible and, well, he likes it well enough – better than well enough, in fact; when he's high he doesn't have to worry about navigating awkward conversations or whatever, and he gets to kiss _Sam_ and that's better than never being able to kiss Sam – that he's not questioning it.

Sam's giving him a weird look now, but he's not really saying anything, so Kurt is pretty confident that he didn't actually say anything out loud and that he just spaced for a while. "What?" he asks, and Sam just shakes his head. He's standing, by this point, but Kurt's still somewhat surprised when he reaches forward and tugs gently on Kurt's shirt until Kurt steps closer, and then closer still, and then Sam's arms are wrapping around him and he is first drawing Kurt in and then kissing him, a soft little press of lips on lips until Kurt thinks _fuck it, seriously_ because what he's noticed is that kissing is so much better high than sober, what with how he hyperfocuses on points of contact and they feel so much more, no matter how briefly they may last, and the way lips move against each other is positively _electrifying_ (or maybe it's just Sam, a tiny part of his mind supplies). He parts his lips slightly so that he can run his tongue against the seam of Sam's mouth until it parts and he can slip it in, testing the ridges of Sam's teeth until Sam thrusts his own tongue forward to meet Kurt's. 

And god, there it is. Kurt's thoughts are swirling so hard he can't keep up with a single one, and it's easier to just concentrate on Sam's mouth on his mouth and Sam's hands at the small of his back, so that's what he does. The world's not quite spinning – he's not _that_ high – but he's feeling unsteady in a way that he's pretty sure is all Sam. The only thing to do is to put his arms around Sam's shoulders and hold on tight so that he doesn't spin out and like, totally explode from the way Sam has now transitioned to peppering Kurt's lips with a series of quick kisses that feel practically desperate, somehow.

He realizes that he's being backed against one of the seats in the pontoon only when the backs of his legs hit it and he trips forward, suddenly unsteady enough that both he and Sam end up tangled together on the floor of the boat.

Sam starts cracking up. "Thank god we're so stoned," he says, running a hand through his wet hair so that it stands on end – and hey, Kurt's clothes are completely damp from Sam's wet body now, how did that slip his notice? "That would have hurt like fuck if we weren't."

"Yeah," Kurt says, but he's distracted because Sam's lips are right there and he wants to see them in literally all of the shapes they can make. So he reaches over to Sam's backpack and pulls the rest of the abandoned joint out of the pocket he left it in, and finds the lighter from where he left it earlier and thumbs the wheel until it flames and he's pulling in another lungful of smoke.

He passes the joint to Sam, because what he wants to do more than anything is to watch Sam smoke it. Like, Sam's lips wrapped around that thin cylinder of paper so tight that smoke can't leak through the cracks is just the most beautiful thing that Kurt has ever seen, maybe, and when he tells Sam as much – Sam still mid-inhale – his eyes crinkle and he pulls the joint away from the two of them when he's finished, fitting his mouth over Kurt's to push the smoke across along with his tongue, hand cradling the back of Kurt's neck, fingers barely up into his hair. Kurt inhales, obediently, and then he sucks on Sam's tongue – just barely, almost no pressure at all, but Sam still groans. And when he pulls away, presumably to let Kurt exhale properly, he scoots back until his back is propped up against one of the seats, and then gestures for Kurt to come sit in his lap. 

So Kurt does, straddling Sam close enough that they're chest to chest, and he plucks the joint from Sam's fingers and takes a quick hit, just pulling it into his mouth and holding it while he presses the joint to Sam's lips, so that they can both properly inhale at the exact same time.

When Sam's chest stops rising with the smoke, Kurt pulls the joint away and replaces it with his lips. He only wishes that they could somehow take a picture of himself, straddling Sam's lap on a freaking pontoon boat that's currently floating around a lake in Eastern Ohio, their mouths pressed together while they exhale streams of smoke through their noses.

They finish the joint slowly, and then, since they're already chest-to-chest anyway, Kurt starts making sense of Sam's drying hair. It's getting long again – he hasn't cut it at least since school let out – and the summer sun has bleached it as blond as ever. It's drying in clumps, so Kurt breaks each one apart by running his hands all over Sam's head, reveling in the damp, soft strands with the spiky ends that tickle his palms as he combs his fingers through them again and again and again until Sam is leaning forward and distracting him with another kiss, this one slow and relaxed, mouths moving gently against each other.

Kurt's dick is definitely interested in these proceedings. He's half hard, the gentle movements of the boat in the water barely rocking him and Sam together. He's probably too high for a full erection, he figures, because he doesn't have one right now, but he's still exaggerating the natural movement of the boat by trying to move closer to Sam, even though they're just about as close as close can be, for just a little bit more delicious pressure. 

Sam is groaning into Kurt's mouth – or, more specifically, into how Kurt's finally got Sam's lower lip between his teeth and is testing just how plush it really is with careful little nibbles – when Kurt's phone alarm goes off.

Fuck.

They need to return the boat.

"It's okay," Sam says, hoarsely, hands tightening at Kurt's waist after Kurt makes as if to move away. "I'm getting hungry anyway. We can make dinner or whatever when we get back or something."

Kurt _whines_ , like seriously actually _whines_. "Don't wanna get up," he says, punctuating his statement with an extra tiny little roll of his hips against Sam's – it's hard to do it right; they're sitting funny and they're both _really_ gone right now. But it still feels really great.

"I know," Sam says, and he leans in for another kiss, hard and biting and deep, before pulling away and leaning his forehead against Kurt's. "Can't afford to go over what we paid for, though."

"Fine," Kurt says, because he really doesn't want them to have to pay more, either. He gets up, moving to one of the actual seats on the boat and sprawling out. "You get to steer us back. I'm way too stoned for that."

Sam laughs, fondly. "Aye, aye, Captain," he says, saluting Kurt and starting the motor up again. As he starts to navigate their way back to the dock, Kurt dozes – not fully asleep, but enough that his thoughts wander through truly magical places that he can't for the life of him remember five minutes after first thinking of them.

+++

After a long, meandering walk back to their campsite, during which they only take two wrong turns (and Kurt is _never_ this directionally challenged, which only goes to prove exactly how distracted he is), Kurt starts to cook a tiny pot full of rice over the camp stove while Sam collects firewood. Sam covers the grill top that swings over the fire pit with aluminum foil while Kurt builds a roaring camp fire; they both set kabobs that they assembled back in Lima out on the grill top – steak kabobs, because it's okay if that doesn't cook all the way through, with a wide assortment of veggies strung out on the skewers as well.

By the time everything is cooking, Kurt is pretty sure he's no longer stoned. He's definitely not sober yet, though, not even by the time everything is ready, and ripping into the food is practically a magical experience. Everything tastes so much more delicious than it normally would, and maybe that's partially due to it being cooked over a wood fire, but it probably mostly has to do with the THC coursing through his system. 

"This is so good," Sam mumbles, mouth full of vegetables, once they're done with the rice and down to one kabob left to split between the two of them. Kurt pushes everything off the skewer, dividing it up into equal piles of meat, giving Sam all of the pineapple and taking all of the peppers and splitting the onion, tomato, and zucchini in half. 

They sit in companionable silence for what feels like several solid, long moments after they finish eating, before Sam gets up to toss the bamboo skewers from their kabobs onto the fire and to fill the rice pot with water from the pump near their campsite to soak. When he's done picking up, he shoots a smile at Kurt. 

"You know what would be perfect right now?"

You, in the tent, with your pants around your ankles, Kurt thinks, because he's never really had someone their age pick up after him without expecting him to pitch in, and because Sam is so beautiful. "What?" he says.

"Ice cream," Sam says, emphatically. "You want to walk to the camp store and get something? It's getting dark and I'm sobering up, so we could also smoke on the way."

"Yes," Kurt says, because ice cream means licking, and weed means kissing, and he's completely behind both of these activities.

So again they meander, this time along the road, following the signs to the camp store, hands brushing together lingeringly as they pass the joint back and forth. It's dark out now, and Kurt can't shake the rush of excitement he gets from doing something that feels so forbidden – the smoke, the brushes of the hands, the walking along in the dark with no one around but the crickets. He can't really see the shape of Sam's lips around the paper, not in this darkness, but somehow that's okay. Sam is a solid mass beside him and he just has to reach out and there Sam is, warm and waiting for the next pass.

Somehow, they finish the joint just before they reach the first of the tents and RVs clustered nearby the camp store. Sam stamps it out by a fork in the road, and Kurt mourns the loss of his excuse to touch Sam regularly. It's a good thing they ran out, though; they run into their first set of actual people almost as soon as they hit the first low path-light.

"Do you think you can fake sober?" Sam asks Kurt, voice low, and Kurt giggles.

"We'll see," Kurt replies, and Sam clutches onto Kurt's upper arm with one hand briefly as they pass a moderately large group of people.

He manages to mask his high for the most part, though, and they reach the camp store without incident. Sam gets a bomb pop and Kurt gets a drumstick and despite a few knowing looks from people in the store who can see the redness of their eyes more clearly in the fluorescent lights, they make it away unscathed, licking their respective treats as they head back.

Somehow, they fall into pace so that they're both eating with their outside hands. Once they pass back from the regular lights, Kurt pulls his phone out and turns on the flashlight app, holding his phone out between the two of them. 

That makes it easy, then, for Sam to grab Kurt's wrist as they pass by a largeish clearing in the trees and tug him out onto the grass. He lets go to lie down on his back, then gestures for Kurt to do the same.

"I don't want to get dirty," Kurt protests, even though all he wants is to be cuddled next to Sam for whatever it is that Sam is going to propose they start doing.

"Okay, use me as a pillow," Sam says, patting his stomach, and that's acceptable even though it means Kurt will have to reach further to kiss, so he nods and gets onto the ground, resting his head right where Sam's ribs meet his stomach. 

"What are we doing down here?" he asks, after they've gotten situated in a way that allows Kurt – and, presumably, Sam as well – to finish his ice cream without it dripping all over everything important.

Sam chuckles. "Look," he says, pointing up into the sky, so Kurt looks. All he sees are stars.

"All I see are stars," he tells Sam.

Sam lowers his arm, just long enough to take Kurt's hand in his and draw it back up, until they're pointing together. "See that?" he asks, outlining a boxy shape with their fingers. "That's Draco."

"Malfoy?" Kurt asks, even though he knows it's not. He just wants to hear Sam's reaction.

Sam's reaction is less heard and more felt, though. He leans up, slipping his free hand under Kurt's head to guide it up, too, until he can brush a quick kiss against Kurt's lips. "Like the constellation," he whispers, lips still touching, and Kurt shudders at the feeling of Sam's dry lips moving against his own as he speaks.

"So where's Orion?" Kurt asks, and when Sam lifts his head up and away, he tries – futilely – to follow the disappearing lips.

"Not visible tonight, I'm afraid," Sam says, and now he's running a hand through Kurt's hair, and usually Kurt would be so pissed at this but now it mostly just feels nice.

"Mmm," he says, wiggling a bit until he's completely comfortable on Sam's stomach. "Tell me more."

+++

Kurt is about to fall asleep when Sam starts to sit up. "We should head back," he says, putting a hand on Kurt's back to help him up, as well. "I don't want to fall asleep on the grass."

"Good call," Kurt says, scrambling to his feet and reaching down to help Sam up. He's mostly pleasantly buzzed now – high enough that he still definitely feels it viscerally, but not so much that he's spinning, like he was starting to do after they finished their last joint. He eats the last bite of his ice cream, now mostly melted, licking the sticky remnants off his fingers as they set off again.

When they finally reach their tent, Sam stokes the fire, and then pulls off his shirt and pushes off his pants until he's just in his boxers, stretching in the light of the newly-built fire.

Kurt is slightly more modest, but not much, not after all the weed he's consumed today. He switches his bottoms for sleep shorts, and his shirts for a wifebeater – not his usual fare, but it _is_ warm out here; he'll need as much to cool him down as possible.

"Want one more before bed?" Sam asks, as they brush their teeth, spitting into the decaying leaves just outside of their campsite. "We're basically through them all, so we might as well go for it."

"Sure, I guess," Kurt says, so as they head into the tent, Sam pulls out one more joint and their lighter.

Something about being cocooned by the same sheets – because Kurt made up this bed _properly_ ; it's not just a silly old sleeping bag – does something to Kurt, though, and Sam's hardly even dampened the end of the joint with his inhale before Kurt is pushing the joint out of Sam's mouth so he can replace it with his own mouth, and then they're kissing, and kissing, and kissing.

"Hold on," Sam says, after a moment, and he gets up to tap out the ember at the end of the joint, and then, once it's extinguished, to put it aside for later. That accomplished, he rolls onto his side, threading a hand through Kurt's short hair, pulling Kurt in for a long kiss. It starts out almost chaste, with their lips barely moving, but then something flips and Sam tightens his grip on the back of Kurt's head, pulling him in closer, harder, pushing the seam of Kurt's lips open with quick little swipes of his tongue, each one probing deeper than the last.

God, Kurt could do this forever, probably. He presses closer to Sam, their bodies now practically flush under the covers as his tongue strokes lazily against Sam's. They have all the time in the world, and time is moving so much slower right now. It's beautiful: Kurt's lips are electric, and his tongue even more so, and the dick thickening in his shorts is the most awake part of him right now. It's straining forward – towards Sam, Kurt thinks, wildly, so he moves towards where it seems to want to go, until his hips are rolling against Sam's.

Sam breaks the kiss. "Fuck, Kurt," he breathes, and then his hips are rolling back against Kurt's, and then he can feel that Sam's cock hard against his thigh, rolling in towards the pressure of Kurt's legs, seeking out – seeking out _Kurt_.

"Exactly," Kurt gasps, moving a hand to Sam's waist as he kisses him again, a series of feathery-light kisses all around the circumference of Sam's lips, until Sam is making tiny little noises as his hips move minutely against Kurt's, as his cock thrusts shallowly and slowly against Kurt's thigh.

"Kurt – Can I?" Sam asks, after what feels like an eternity of this, and he places a deliberate hand against the front of Kurt's sleep shorts.

Kurt groans. "God, please do," he says, and then Sam is reaching inside Kurt's shorts and boxer-briefs, all the way inside, and hel _lo_ , Evans. Sam's hand is big and sure, a little too tight around Kurt, but in a good way, fucking slowly up and down the shaft of Kurt's cock. He's gotten calluses somewhere – from the shop, maybe – but he moves his hand all the way up to the head of Kurt's cock and collects some of the precome gathering there, smoothing it across the head and then lower, and there. _There_ is the overwhelming rush of sensation that occurs whenever someone else is handling your dick, that Kurt's missed so much in the past month and a half.

"Sam," he gasps, and finally he pushes the hem of Sam's boxers down below Sam's hard cock and, after a second's thought, on past his balls. He licks his palm and then wraps his hand around Sam, looser than Sam's holding onto him, moving his arm a little quicker, and when Sam's hips roll up into one of Kurt's downstrokes, he takes that as a sign and starts fucking into Sam's fist, first slowly, and then harder and faster, until he can no longer keep up a pretense of trying to press kisses against Sam's mouth, he's panting damply against Sam's neck, forehead burrowed as they move together, stroking each other – at slightly different speeds, so it's a little confusing, but it's still the best goddamn feeling Kurt's had since the first time he was high.

Sam's hips start jerking more erratically, his gasps growing in volume until he's flat-out moaning into the night air, so Kurt gathers up everything in him to move back into a kiss – sloppy-dirty but still wonderful, too much tongue and so much spit, but Sam is sucking his tongue into his mouth and that's enough to shoot directly through to Kurt's groin, and then Kurt's shooting off, thick warm spurts into Sam's hand and a little bit onto the sheets between them.

Kurt stops touching Sam for the briefest of moments – just long enough to refocus and swipe some of his come up into his hand so he can uses it as lube, pushing it over Sam's cock and down, his hand slipping over the length, until Sam is shouting out and coming, too, all over Kurt's hand and arm and, again, onto the sheets.

"We should have moved those down," Sam says, after a few moments have passed.

Kurt laughs. Uncharacteristically, he says, "Well, they'll wash at least," and then he's leaning over to kiss Sam again because he's not tired yet and he doesn't want to stop touching the other boy. Not now, not after that.

Eventually, the feverish need to get physically closer to Sam, to kiss him deeper and harder and longer, starts to fade, replaced by exhaustion. Kurt makes as if to move away to sleep, since he's lying half on top of the other boy, but Sam tightens the arm he has draped around Kurt's back, so Kurt just settles down in the crook of Sam's arm, tugging a pillow over Sam's shoulder so his head is resting on something soft, and stretching his arm across Sam's front. "Good night," he murmurs, and there's an answering rumble from Sam's chest below him, but he can't distinguish the words.

He wakes up feeling completely, disgustingly sticky, to fingers tracing feather-light patterns along his side and sunlight unavoidably coming in through his eyelids and, presumably, the tent walls. When he opens his eyes, Sam is watching him, his own eyes half-open. It's Sam's hand that's touching him like that.

Kurt makes a questioning sound, and Sam blinks once, smiling wide, before leaning in and pressing his lips to Kurt's, soft and sweet. Kurt smiles, returning the kiss chastely, and he's about to cup Sam's cheek with one hand when he stiffens and pulls back.

He's entirely sober now, and it's not like Sam had any more than Kurt did, so presumably, he's straight, too. 

"What is it?" Sam murmurs, moving back in, and if Kurt didn't know better, he'd swear that Sam was trying to chase his lips.

"I – we're not high," Kurt says, dumbly, even though that really doesn't articulate anything, because Sam is hovering and his lips are a scant inch away and Kurt can't really focus on anything but that.

But Sam is moving away slightly, in confusion, maybe. "Is that a, um, problem? I didn't think it would be. I hoped it wouldn't be."

Kurt blinks. "You're straight," he says, plainly. "You've always been straight. You're sober right now, so why aren't you, like, remembering that you're straight?"

Sam laughs, but he's also frowning slightly. "But I'm not," he says. "Straight, that is. I _am_ sober."

"But – Quinn, and Santana, and Mercedes," Kurt says, and seriously, he shouldn't be the one to remind Sam that he's been with women before – had sex with them, even; Kurt's heard stories from Mercedes.

"I'm not gay, either," Sam says, rolling his eyes. "It's not all black and white, Kurt, you know that."

Blaine thought he was bi, too, for a hot second there, but he really wasn't. And that's what Kurt assumes Sam thinks. He doesn't point that out, though. Not yet. "But – you never said."

"No one ever asked if I was straight or bi or whatever," Sam says, shrugging. "Just gay. And I'm not. So I said so." He examines Kurt's face for a moment, then laughs again. "Kurt, I like, got you off with my _hand_ last night, how is that anything close to straight?"

"I don't know," Kurt says, exasperatedly. "We were smoking that devil drug; who knows what effects that has on your sex drive?"

"I can assure you," Sam says, entirely straight-faced now. "Everything we've done – it's been for you, not just because I wanted someone to kiss or, you know, whatever, and you were the closest person. Okay?"

And that's quite a lot to process, and Kurt's still just waking up. "Oh," he says, slowly. "Okay."

"So I'd really like to kiss you," Sam says, slowly. "I thought that especially after last night you'd be okay with that. Um, I'm sorry if I was wrong---"

"No, no," Kurt rushes to say. "Um. The kissing, it was. Nice."

"Good," Sam breathes, and he's lowering down slowly, giving Kurt time to move (Kurt doesn’t) before finally, finally pressing his lips against his, parting them almost immediately and slipping his tongue through.

Kurt kisses back, deeply, reveling in how Sam's lips and tongue feel without the buffer of weed between them. It's so nice, just casually making out in bed – or, rather, tent. He hasn't been able to do this in a while, and it's just. It's nice.

And then the thought crosses his mind: he's going to NYADA in the fall. Sam is going to the University of Kentucky for the in-state tuition. That's like, seven hundred miles or something. He pulls away.

"I can't," he says.

Sam looks rabidly disappointed. He ducks out of the tent without saying a word, and when Kurt pokes his head out after Sam, Sam is in the process of packing everything up. "We might as well shower up and hit the road," he says, tersely. "Avoid the rush hour traffic."

"Sam…" Kurt says, but Sam just turns away.

"Why don't you take care of the bedding?" he says, without turning around at all, so Kurt sighs and starts putting things away.

+++

"I like you," Sam says, after almost two hours of silence, reaching forward to turn off the music. Kurt's hands are at ten and two on the wheel, and he's sitting rigid, looking straight through the window, but he chances a glance sideways at Sam. Sam's hair is a mess, bangs tumbling toward his eyes. He looks exhausted, and earnest. "You're probably my best friend these days, and I like kissing you, and… all that other stuff we did, you know, last night." Another glance – Sam is smiling, shyly.

Kurt can hear what Sam _isn't_ saying, almost louder than he can hear what is actually being said. He's been dancing around the same things in his mind since, well. Since the first time they really smoked together, at least. "I do too," he says, finally, after debating extensively with himself about what the best course of action may be. "You're one of my best friends, too." And it's even true: sure, Finn is his brother, and Rachel and Mercedes are his best girls, but he's spent more time just hanging out with Sam this summer than anyone else. At this point, they basically are best friends.

"So why can't we do anything about it?"

"Kentucky and New York aren't exactly next-door neighbors," Kurt says, flatly. 

"Okay. Sure," Sam says, and they both fall silent for about ten miles, the only sound a quiet song coming from Kurt's iPod, because apparently he just turned the music down, not off. Sam's voice is tight, with emotion maybe, when he speaks again. "So what do you want to do? Say this never happened and never let it happen again?"

That is absolutely the last thing Kurt wants. He just – he doesn't want to get involved, because he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he could fall hard for Sam Evans if he let himself. And it would be really hard to not let himself, not if they continue with this, this _thing_.

But he owes Sam honesty, so he says, lowly, eyes still fixed on the road, "I don't want that."

"Okay," Sam says, voice even, and because they're passing an exit with a lot of options – they're almost through Columbus at this point – he says, "Let's get some lunch. I want to finish this conversation before we get home."

They're still an hour and a half outside of Lima, at least, and Kurt wonders how long Sam thinks the conversation will take, but he turns onto the exit ramp and follows the signs to a Waffle House. They order before Sam says anything. "So we have like, what, a month? Before I go off to Kentucky? And then you start the week after that, yes?"

"Yes," Kurt says, fiddling with the straw in his glass of water. "That's accurate."

"Okay, I get not wanting to start something so soon before college," Sam says, after a long pause. "But like – we've kind of already started it, right?"

And, well. "Yes, kind of," Kurt says, and he can't help the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he remembers what exactly starting stuff has entailed.

"Okay, so why don't we, you know, go for it?" Sam asks, pushing his hair back. It half-falls back onto his face, half-doesn't, sticking awkwardly up in little spikes, and all Kurt wants to do is to finger-comb it back in place. "For the time that we _do_ have."

He focuses on cutting into his waffle so that he doesn't give into this desire. "I don't want anyone to get hurt," he says, finally.

"So we come up with rules," Sam says, shrugging. "So that no one gets hurt."

And that's when Kurt finally, finally realizes that Sam actually wants this, wants _him_. And it's this realization, that Sam wants to keep kissing Kurt, probably as much as Kurt wants to keep kissing Sam, more than any thoughts or desires that Kurt, personally, might have about this situation, that makes him acquiesce. "What kind of rules?"

"I don't know," Sam says. He makes as if to shrug again, but ends up just hunching his shoulders in and stirring his coffee, even though he didn't actually add anything that would necessitate stirring. "Like, we don't tell people about it so that other people don't get hurt." He cuts his eyes up at Kurt. "Mercedes, mostly. If this – if we weren't going into whatever this might be for just the month until college – we're doing that, right?"

"Yeah," Kurt says, because it honestly seems like the best plan. You know. Since they seem to be doing _something_.

"Right. If we weren't doing that, I'd be all for telling people, dude, like please don't think I want to keep you a secret." He smiles, crookedly. "Any guy should be proud to have you, so like… don't think I wouldn't be. But it would be hard to explain just a pre-planned month." And, wow, Kurt wasn't even thinking that, but it's weirdly sweet that Sam did.

"So, what are you proposing, exactly?" Kurt asks, because he knows that this could go so, so wrong if they're not on the same page. "Friends with benefits? Secret lovers? Something else?" He's not going to say the boyfriends word, not first. He's not going to agree to the boyfriends word. Boyfriends means feelings and Kurt is not going to develop any more feelings than those he already has.

"The first?" Sam says, forking some of his hash browns. Kurt watches as he chews, the way his throat moves when he swallows, and yeah, there's no way Kurt could, like, _not_ let things between them keep happening, not when the tiny creases that form at the corners of Sam's mouth every time it moves catch his gaze every. single. time. "That seems – clean."

Sam's tone changed at the word clean. Kurt doesn't know what that means, not really. "Okay," he says. "So, like, we live together, so obviously we can't be making out all the time."

"Awww," Sam says, pouting, but the pout breaks into a laugh. "Yeah, I figured, dude. Especially since we're keeping this on the DL." He takes another bite of his hash browns, and then says, mouth still mostly full, "So we don't do anything when anyone else is around. Or awake."

"Deal," Kurt says. "Nothing in empty public spaces, either. Parks, movie theaters, whatever. Not in Lima, at least."

Sam nods, swallows. "We, um." He reddens. "No sex. Real sex. Ugh. You know what I mean." He shakes his head, and Kurt sits silent, waiting to see where this is going. "You know. Anal. Because um. It's not that I, you know, wouldn't want to, but um. If we do, you know, that, then it would be really hard for me to just. Go."

"Yes, yes, I agree," Kurt says, hurriedly, because it took him a lot to become comfortable talking about sex stuff with Blaine, and now that he's with – well, not with-with, but kind of with – someone else, he's not quite back at zero, but he still has this whole new comfort curve to work through. "That would get – difficult." Sex right before moving away from Sam – yeah, that would be a bad idea. "So um. I don't want to say we go slow, because we're not going to be working towards any specific sexual end-point or whatever, so – we take it easy?"

"Yeah," Sam says. "Yeah. That sounds good." He pauses for a moment, apparently lost in thought, and then reaches forward abruptly and takes Kurt's hand in his own. "I want this to be okay, though. You know. If we're not somewhere that people we know could find us."

Kurt's stomach does a funny little flip. This is such a bad idea. "It's okay," he says, and the tiny smile he sends towards Sam is matched, then magnified, on Sam's lips.

There's nothing else, really, that either of them can think of, so they finish their breakfasts in a content silence, fingers still locked by the napkin dispenser. Eating with one hand is hard, but Kurt manages to cut his waffle and sausages with his fork, somehow, so. Whatever, right?

After they've paid and they walk back to the car, Sam presses Kurt against the back driver-side door and kisses him. Kurt's pretty sure that this is already breaking one of their rules, but he doesn't care – the sun is hot above and Sam is hot, too, in so very many ways, and Kurt lets his lips part, pushes his fingers up through Sam's hair, and kisses back, only breaking away when Sam slips his leg in between Kurt's, knee grazing against the very lowest part of Kurt's thighs.

"This is public," he gasps, and oh god, he's half-hard. That needs to go away so he can drive, like, _now_.

"Oh, right. Sorry," Sam says, not looking very sorry, and Kurt can't help but finger-comb Sam's hair into place like he's been wanting to do since they sat down to eat, and it only makes sense to follow that up with another kiss, because, like, he was basically touching Sam's face and it would be criminal to not let his lips also touch Sam's face after that, right?

Kurt's well aware that his logic is fucked. Kurt is pretty fucked, too.

+++

Things fall into place when they get home, more or less. They find that smoking together provides a nice little unit of time where they can remove themselves from everyone and everything, and just be together in a tangle of smoke, tongues, and legs, deep drags on joints peppered by hard biting kisses and soft, sweet kisses, and _so much_ shallow thrusting. The theory is that with these little pre-determined moments to kiss and… stuff, they'll be better able to separate when they can be together from when they should be apart. Hooking up when high is a good way to keep everything to a steady pace.

It's not a perfect arrangement, though, and more often than not, Kurt finds himself running into Sam in the kitchen while everyone else is asleep. Kurt is no longer kept up by thoughts of Blaine, and Blaine being gone. Now he's kept awake by thoughts of Sam sleeping in a room right by his, so close that it would be so easy to just tiptoe in there and slip under the covers on Sam's pull-out bed and kiss him till he's awake, and hard, and thrusting into the spit-slick palm of Kurt's hand.

He (barely) resists those urges, though, limiting himself to desperate kisses against the refrigerator at least every other night, pushing Sam's hair back as he cups his face with trembling hands, letting Sam slip that leg between his own – a move that Kurt is quickly realizing is basically an Evans trademark. When they rendezvous in the kitchen, it is always, always cautious – Finn is always asleep in the house, and Kurt's dad and Carole are, too, when they're not in DC, and Kurt and Sam have sprung apart at floorboard creaks coming from upstairs more times than Kurt can possibly count. 

He hasn't gotten off from one of these kitchen encounters – not directly, at least; not with Sam. He's gotten hard, so hard, but there's something gauche about humping up against a kitchen counter or a fridge until you come in your pants. He's gotten hard from their illicit kisses, and the way that Sam knows _exactly_ what to do with that tongue of his, the implications of what Sam's kisses have on Sam's as-yet-untapped potential in giving blowjobs. He only comes with Sam when they're high, far away from everyone else, when Sam is holding their cocks together as they roll their hips, or when they're both completely naked in Kurt's bed the one time post-camping trip that everyone was gone all night, moving closer and closer and closer together, moving against each other so desperately despite their highs that Kurt wouldn't be surprised if they fused together by the time they came.

Mostly, though, kissing ends with Kurt jerking off, palm tight and fast around his dick, eyes closed, pretending it's Sam's hand stroking him to completion and, once or twice, picturing Sam doing the same thing in his bed.

Kurt knows he's in trouble. Every time Sam runs a thumb along Kurt's cheek, every time Sam ducks his head before turning it in for a quick kiss, every time Sam's fucking mouth tightens around those goddamn joints they smoke regularly and his cheeks hollow out as he inhales, Kurt is reminded of exactly how in trouble he is.

If he were smarter, if he had better self-control, he knows, he'd put a stop to what they're doing before he gets in too deep. He's opened his mouth at least six times to say to Sam, "I don't think we should keep doing this."

Every single time, something – the sun on Sam's hair, the way he smiles with his eyes just before he's about to move in to pass smoke to Kurt through a kiss, his fucking _abs_ , his very _presence_ \- just stops Kurt in his tracks, and he moves in for another kiss, or to brush a finger across the skin on Sam's arm, when there are other people around, or to pluck the joint from Sam's fingers.

And every single night, after Kurt finishes fisting himself until he comes, conflicted and alone in his bed, he reminds himself that this is purely sex and weed. There's no need to develop feelings. Feelings would be detrimental to what they're doing.

+++

Kurt doesn't just spend time with Sam, of course. He hangs regularly out with Mercedes, Rachel, and Finn, and there are a couple of afternoons where all the guys come over to play video games, because Finn has a decent setup and three of them live there and it just makes sense. He goes out with the girls a few times, too, and there's one or two big get-togethers.

The last big get-together of the summer, before the first wave of people leave for college, is at Santana's. She literally sends a mass text to everyone asking them to the " _big drunken blowout goodbye party of the century, u bitches better show. and bring $5 for booze and shit_ ," and Puck follows that up with another mass text, this one saying " _sry dudes santana says no weed at her old mans house_."

So. This should be interesting.

Kurt doesn't drink, not really, not since the April debacle in his sophomore year. He's been smoking for basically most of the summer, though, and he's going off to college, where he knows he'll be expected to be able to socialize and network with cocktails and stuff, even if he refuses to go to any and all undergrad parties, so why not experiment in a relatively safe setting, with people he trusts? Santana has rooms available, and her parents are out of town, so crashing isn't out of the question, and her house is technically within walking distance of his, so even if he doesn't want to stay he has an option besides being sober so that he can get back home.

So he, Sam, and Finn carpool over with Tina and Brittany in Tina's car, and when Santana offers him a red solo cup with a smirk and says it's a vodka cranberry, he takes it. 

He tries pace himself, but Sam is sitting next to him on the couch and he's so focused on pretending like he doesn't want to kiss Sam in front of everyone that his cup is empty before he even realizes it. 

Time sort of starts to blur as the party heats up – there's dancing to loud, pulsing music, and drinking, and eating half of the bagel bites Santana set out on the snack table, and drinking, and then Rachel gets up to talk about how much she'll miss everyone, and Kurt starts feeling entirely overwhelmed, so he wanders out to the backyard with his mostly-empty cup – and what number is he on now? Four, maybe? – for a breather.

Sam follows him. "C'mon," he says, tugging Kurt behind a tree, so they're more or less out of sight of the house, and Kurt acquiesces. And then Sam kisses him, pressing him against the tree trunk. Kurt's just drunk enough that he doesn't mind they're breaking, like, all of their rules right now, probably.

Mostly, he just wants Sam.

"I want you," he mumbles, breaking the kiss because he needs a breath of air, and Sam nods. 

"I know just the place," he says, and he's pulling Kurt back towards the house, inside, and up the stairs.

"How do you know this place so well?" Kurt asks, as Sam guides them into what looks to be a guest room, and locks the door.

Sam laughs. "I used to date Santana," he says. "I mean. I thought I was dating her at the time, but now I’m pretty sure I was just her beard."

That's right. All that happened when Kurt was at Dalton, so he only had passing knowledge of it all, and most of what he did know was gossip. "So she brought you home with her?"

"We never did anything like what I do with you," Sam says, cupping Kurt's cheek with a wide palm, leaning into kiss Kurt so sweetly he thinks he might faint in a way that has nothing to do with the alcohol he's consumed. Kurt didn't need reassurance, he doesn't think. He's pretty sure his reaction to this conversation wasn't jealousy.

Pretty sure.

"Okay," he says, and he pulls Sam in for a proper kiss, an aggressive kiss, pushing his tongue along the seam of Sam's lips until they part and he can plunder the taste of rum and diet coke and the grapes Sam had apparently been eating earlier from his mouth. He walks Sam back until the backs of Sam's knees bump against the bed, then breaks the kiss long enough to climb onto the bed, tugging on Sam's hand until Sam is lying on his side, facing him. "Okay," he says again, moving in again, slower this time, and kissing Sam again, moving his lips against Sam's until they're perfectly situated for him to suck Sam's lower lip into his mouth and worry at it, more with suction than with teeth. 

Sam groans and moves a hand to Kurt's waist, tugging his shirt free of his belt, then pushing his hand under it onto Kurt's back. Sam's hand is warm but dry, spreading wide across Kurt's skin, his thumb making tiny circles just above Kurt's hipbone.

Kurt lets Sam's lower lip go after one last soft tug, then immediately kisses him again, harder. Sam makes a quiet noise, then moves his hand enough so that he can push Kurt flat against the bed, shifting until he's half on top of Kurt, pushing Kurt's shirt up higher and higher, until he can reach under to tweak a nipple, then run his thumb over it, over and over and over again.

It's Kurt turn to groan. He moves both of his hands to Sam's head, pulling him harder into the kiss, before moving one hand down Sam's back, then pushing it between their bodies, fumbling in the general direction of Sam's belt buckle – he's half hard, and he needs more.

Sam moves back, staring at Kurt for a long moment before standing up. Kurt's heart leaps into his throat – did he push too far? – but then Sam starts taking off his clothes, first tugging off his t-shirt – and oh god, there's that chest again – and then unbuckling his belt, undoing the snap on his shorts, and pushing them down with his boxers.

This is the second time Sam's been completely naked in front of him, and it's fucking _breathtaking_. Kurt reaches down surreptitiously to press his hand against his dick, which, due to Sam's sudden nakedness, is now totally hard.

"No, stop," Sam says, moving forward – and Kurt can't tear his eyes away from Sam's cock, which is beautifully hard, bobbing slightly with each step. And then Sam's on the bed again, pulling Kurt's hand away from his crotch. "Don't touch yourself, Kurt, that's my job, okay?"

"Then you should probably do your job," Kurt says, winking, because god, he needs Sam to touch him _yesterday_. 

"You should probably get naked first," Sam says, licking his lips. Kurt's mouth goes dry, and he nods, dumbly, scrambling to push off his jeans and unbutton his shirt and take it and his undershirt and boxer-briefs off and climb back onto the bed and straddle Sam, slotting their cocks together and rolling his hips _hard_ because jesus fuck but he needs the contact.

"Kurt," Sam says, so Kurt rolls his hips again, harder, biting his lip hard at the sensation. "Kurt, I need-"

"What?" Kurt asks, breathlessly. 

"More," Sam says, desperately, so Kurt pulls back.

"Can I-?" he asks, moving down Sam's body and hovering over his cock. "Do you mind if I-?"

"Do I-" Sam laughs, a high, breathless laugh. "God, Kurt, no, please, yes."

Kurt quirks a smile up at Sam, and then he's leaning forward, studying Sam's cock briefly before licking a fat stripe up the vein on the underside, sucking the head of Sam's cock into his mouth when he reaches the tip, wrapping his hand around the base, and slowly, slowly taking Sam deeper in. 

"I'm not going to last long," Sam warns, breathlessly, fucking his hips up minutely, pushing his cock slightly deeper into Kurt's mouth, and god. Kurt rolls his own hips against the bed, because he needs some kind of friction, some kind of pressure, and increases suction, pausing only to swirl his tongue around the head of Sam's cock once or twice, before allowing Sam to fuck into his mouth again.

Sam's movements become more frenetic, but it's obvious that he's still holding back, and since he's thicker than Blaine was, and since Kurt hasn't done this in a while, he doesn't tell Sam to go ahead and fuck his mouth. That can wait till next time, because damn but Kurt hopes there will be a next time for this. 

"Oh god, you," Sam says, and Kurt has to use his free hand to press Sam's hips down into the bed, they're moving so erratically. "I – you're – I like you so much, I just – please, Kurt," he gasps, and Kurt takes in as much of Sam as he can, swirling his tongue as best as he is able, and then Sam is groaning out his name again and coming, hard, and Kurt has to force his throat to relax so that he can swallow it without choking, pulling off of Sam's cock as he does so.

" _Sam_ ," he breathes, moving back up Sam's body, and god, his cock is leaking precome and he just really needs to touch it, but earlier Sam said it was his job, not Kurt's, so he just gestures at it helplessly.

And Sam grins that grin of his, the wicked cute grin that makes Kurt think things he shouldn't, about how much he likes Sam and how he wants Sam to always stay around. Kurt's thoughts all basically evaporate, though, when Sam scoots down on the bed until he's positioned right above Kurt's cock. Kurt pushes himself on his elbows, and it's a good thing he does, because he gets to see the impossible, beautiful sight of Sam's plush lips wrapping around his own cock instead of the thin paper cylinder of a joint, and when Sam's cheeks hollow out, it's because _oh fuck jesus_ he's effectively sucking on Kurt's dick instead of a joint.

And then Sam starts doing something impossibly good with his tongue, and Kurt can't prop himself up anymore. He lets himself fall back, trying to be extra conscious not to fuck his hips upward into Sam's mouth, but it's goddamn hard to keep from moving them, and to keep from pushing his hands into Sam's hair and holding tight. So he fists his hands into the sheets and holds on for dear life, biting his lip hard, and then harder, as Sam adds a hand to the base of Kurt's cock and starts moving it slowly, even as he starts moving his mouth up and down the top of it methodically, increasing suction as he pulls off one way, and then starting over and increasing it again as he moves his mouth back down. 

Kurt's so, so close. "Sam," he says, voice ripping from his throat as Sam does that tongue thing again. "Sam, I'm gonna –"

Sam pulls off, wrapping his hand completely around Kurt's dick and moving it firmly up and down the shaft, twisting as it nears the head, and uses his other hand to gently – gently! – squeeze Kurt's balls, and then Kurt's shooting off in thick stripes across Sam's hand and chest and a tiny bit on his face, which is still hovering close. His tongue darts out and licks up what it can reach, and if Kurt hadn't just come, the sight of Sam's tongue with Kurt's come on it would do the trick.

Sam grabs his t-shirt to haphazardly wipe the come off of his hand and torso, then flops down next to Kurt. "Hi," he says, quietly.

"Hi," Kurt whispers back, and now that Sam's no longer sucking his cock, he feels totally comfortable in reaching out to push Sam's sweaty hair back. He follows that action with a soft little kiss, which Sam deepens, lazily. His head is swimming pleasantly with the orgasm and the remnants of the vodka in his system, and he's just. He's really happy right now.

The rest of the house is quiet, which makes Kurt think that they took long enough that everyone else is asleep or gone. He feels vaguely guilty for bailing on the party, but, well. Blowjobs are better than tearful goodbyes. He can have those when he's sober and people are actually leaving.

+++

But then people do start actually leaving. First Mercedes, who Kurt hugs fiercely and kisses on the cheek and promises to video chat at least once a week, and then Mike, and then Artie and Tina go back to McKinley, which isn't the same but which still feels like a departure.

Sam's family shows up on a sunny Saturday morning, minivan in tow. Finn helps Sam and Kurt and Sam's mom load the few boxes of Sam's clothes and books and video games and movies into the back of the van while Sam's dad watches the kids. 

Kurt and Sam haven't talked about this, about leaving, at all, not since Waffle House. They've talked about finding a time and space to repeat everything that happened at Santana's party, but they never found anything. They've talked about kissing, and handjobs, and lust, but not about any kind of feelings whatsoever.

Kurt's heart is breaking, a little, as he places Sam's teddy bear at the top of the pile of his stuff in the van. But he can't let it. This was just a summer fling with his best friend – because, at this point, Sam _is_ his best friend – nothing more.

Sam tugs Kurt aside while Stevie and Stacey race Finn inside for lunch, and their parents follow at a more sedate pace. "I'm going to miss you so much," he whispers, resting his forehead against Kurt's.

"We'll keep in touch," Kurt promises. Nothing's ever going to be the same, though. Sam will find a part-time job that will increase his hours during holidays and keep him in Kentucky with his family. He won't have the excuse of New Directions to move back in with Kurt, and it's not like they'll just have to drive four or five hours to get to each other, because in a week, Kurt will be moving to New York City.

He's been so excited for New York that he's never let himself consider the people who won't be there with him.

God, this whole idea was a terrible one.

Sam sways in, eyes starting to fall shut – a kiss, then.

Kurt can't handle that, though. He places an open palm in the center of Sam's chest, holds Sam away. "Don't," he says, his voice breaking on the word. "I can't, Sam."

"But –" Sam says. "One last time? Please?"

"Damn it, Sam, I want to," Kurt says, hollowly. "I want to, so badly, you have no idea. But if I do – if we do? I won't be able to let you go."

"So don't," Sam says, challengingly, and Kurt shudders.

"Our rules, Sam." Kurt says, gently, even though it kills him to do it. "We're not going to get too attached. Classes start on Wednesday for you. You'll make new friends. I want you to be happy."

"But," Sam says again, and Kurt sighs, harshly, and Sam falls silent and looks at him. Eventually, he nods. Kurt doesn’t know what Sam sees. He doesn't want to know what Sam sees. He doesn't want to know what Sam's feeling right now, because whatever Sam is feeling is sure to wreck him completely. He doesn't meet Sam's eyes.

"You're my best friend, okay?" Sam says, finally, and he pulls Kurt into a hug and does not kiss him. "You better keep me up to date on everything. Everything. Okay?"

"Okay," Kurt says, and god, he wants to kiss Sam so badly, He buries his face in Sam's neck instead, smells Sam's smell one last time.

They go inside eventually, eat lunch with Sam's family. The Evans clan leaves after they finish. Kurt tries to keep from watching them drive away through an upstairs window. He's not very successful. Every time he tries to inhale, his breath catches on a knot of tears buried deep within his throat.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurt never texts Sam what he's truly feeling, because a lot of that would be: I miss you, I miss you so much, I ran into a man dressed like one of those superheroes from that movie you really like in the middle of the street today and all I could think about was the way we watched it before we started our, you know, whatever it was, and even then I was so hyperaware of you that I couldn't really pay attention, and I still don't know the plot because the time we watched it on my laptop in bed on that weekend morning when Finn, Dad, and Carole were over at Rachel's for that brunch thing, we just ended up kissing the whole time because the helmet and cape combo turns you on and I like kissing you, every time Rachel starts talking about networking I start thinking about you which is bad because I know I do really need to network, I miss you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything that I have about NYADA classes etc is taken from a combination of Tisch School of the Arts program at NYU and the performing arts program at Emerson, with a little help from some posted syllabi. 
> 
> Thanks to K and L for holding my hand through this so far and doing beta work :)

They text, regularly. The distance grows – not easier, perhaps, but more familiar, with each text message Kurt sends, and doubly so with each he receives, from the first " _rip touchdown jesus, they really need a new one_ " barely any time after Sam left, to the " _i wish u could come help move me in_ " he gets on Sam's move-in day. 

In turn, Kurt snaps pictures of the giant pile of clothes he's sorting through, packing only the essentials for New York, and sends it with the message _I'm drowning in clothes here_. He goes to eat Waffle House one last time before he moves up north – it was never really a favorite restaurant, but he has fond memories now – and texts Sam that he's trying his hash browns smothered and capped this time.

 _lol HASH browns_ , Sam responds, and that's followed up with _i hope you dont smoke without me i dont wanna smoke without you anymore_ and then a _hey wait theres a waffle house walking distance from my dorm, stay at yours ill go to mine we can pretend were eating together_.

And even though it makes that sick feeling creep back up his throat again, Kurt sits tight, picking at his hash browns and waffles and drinking more and more coffee, until Sam calls him. "Hey," Sam says, voice warm in Kurt's ear. "I got a burger and a plateful of hash browns. Peppered."

Kurt's mouth works for a bit before he finally conjures up sound. "Hi, Sam," he whispers. "How is it?"

"It's good," Sam says. Kurt's pretty sure his mouth is full. "I'm hungry. The walk was longer than I thought it would be."

"Oh," Kurt says. He's not really sure how to respond. "That's too bad."

"Nah, it's cool, I could use the exercise," Sam says, and Kurt can picture his smile, his shrug. "I mean, I've only had one day's worth of classes so far and they're not _too_ far away, so maybe my tune will change if my second day's classes are further, but for now - yeah. The only thing that's too bad is that I can't kiss you after."

Kurt's breath catches in his throat. "Oh," he says, dumbly.

"Oh," Sam echoes, and he's silent for a moment. "Are we like – not talking about that?"

"No, no," Kurt says. "Talking about it… it's fine. Good. Yes." And, even though some of the other people in the restaurant are giving him these sideways looks that indicates they find him super rude for talking on the phone inside, he takes another bite of his food, clears his throat, and says, "So um, how was your first day?"

(They don't call regularly, though, not after that, because after they hung up twenty minutes later, Kurt wanted nothing more than to drive down to Lexington and spend the night with Sam, and he can't afford those kinds of feelings. He can't.

Instead, they text.)

+++

Kurt never texts Sam what he's truly feeling, because a lot of that would be: I miss you, I miss you so much, I ran into a man dressed like one of those superheroes from that movie you really like in the middle of the street today and all I could think about was the way we watched it before we started our, you know, whatever it was, and even then I was so hyperaware of you that I couldn't really pay attention, and I still don't know the plot because the time we watched it on my laptop in bed on that weekend morning when Finn, Dad, and Carole were over at Rachel's for that brunch thing, we just ended up kissing the whole time because the helmet and cape combo turns you on and I like kissing you, every time Rachel starts talking about networking I start thinking about you which is bad because I know I do really need to network, I miss you.

Instead, he texts, _A guy in my class just implied that Nick Jonas was better in H2$ than Daniel Radcliffe; I am seriously doubting the effectiveness of NYADA's admissions process_ and _God, what they say about New York bagels being the best is so true_ and _I think I just found your guitar pick in my bag_.

He doesn't know whether Sam is texting his feelings or not. He doesn't think so; most of the texts Sam sends are about weird things that happened in class, or awesome new foods he's tried, or people he meets when he's biking around the city.

But maybe Sam's doing the exact same thing Kurt is. Maybe each text that says _its not even basketball season yet and the recruits are celebrities, crazy_ and _never ever ever try the hot brown, im going to have to do double workouts for the next month after that thing_ is actually saying : I want to share this with you more than anything.

It's a problem. Kurt is now in the greatest city on earth, home to a fantastic array of unique, gorgeous gay men, and all he can think about is a boy-next-door living in Kentucky, seven hundred miles away. A boy who, for all intents and purposes, is just his friend. Nothing more, not now.

He can't throw himself into the dating scene, though, no matter how many boys Rachel drags up to him at the Tisch mixers they crash - because networking is, after all, everything. 

Rachel confronts him about this after the third week of classes. "Kurt," she says, as they leave their Development of the American Musial class. "You're single in the promised land of gay men and I haven't noticed you so much as look at another man here. You can't possibly still be mourning Blaine, not after what he did to you, despite how lovely he may have seen beforehand. So why-"

Kurt cuts her off. "I'm just not interested in anyone here," he says, and he sounds embarrassingly miserable to his own ears.

"Are you interested in someone elsewhere?" Rachel asks, rounding on him and stopping him short in the middle of the hall. 

"What in the world would give you that idea?" Kurt asks, voice tight because like – this is not the time for this conversation to happen.

"You said you weren't interested in anyone _here_ ," Rachel says, raising her eyebrows expectantly.

Kurt swallows. "Um, no I didn't," he says, lamely. He's so taken aback by this apparent slip-up and turn in conversation that he completely doesn't even know what to say.

"You do!" Rachel crows. "Oh my god, you totally love someone back home."

"That's – a really strong word," Kurt says, uncomfortably.

"Is it Puck?" she asks. "He's very charming under his bad boy exterior and he has lovely abs and he's a great kisser, so I wouldn't be surprised."

"It's not Puck," Kurt says, helplessly, because the last thing he needs is for Rachel to tell Puck that Kurt has a thing for him. "But I'm beginning to think that you might have feelings for him."

Rachel blushes. "I do not," she says. "Is it Mike? He's a lovely dancer and he also has very nice abs."

"Do I seriously have a thing for abs?" Kurt asks, interestedly. Since she's not guessing Sam, at least not yet, he's beginning to feel more relaxed about this whole conversation. 

"I don’t know," Rachel says. "I don't see why you wouldn't, though." She purses her lips, as if considering something, then says, slowly, "It can't possibly be Finn; that was sophomore year and you're brothers now. So it could be Artie, or Sam, or –" And Kurt must make some kind of strange face when Rachel says Sam's name, because she breaks off abruptly, eyes widening. "Oh my god, it's Sam, isn't it?"

"I," Kurt says, eloquently.

"Don't worry, I won't tell him," she insists.

And Kurt knows – he _knows_ that telling Rachel is a decision that he and Sam should make together, but Sam is all the way in Kentucky, and Kurt just really wants a confidante. So. "I'm more worried about Mercedes finding out," he admits, stiffly. 

"But why would Mercedes mind you having a crush on Sam, unless –" Rachel says, and then her eyes grow even rounder, if possible. "Kurt, you _didn't_."

Kurt groans, ducking his face in his hands. "We did," he says, and his heart sinks a little bit at his own words. 

"But – when?"

"The last month of summer."

"A whole month? But, Kurt, that's - that's a long time."

"I know," he says, flatly. "I know it is." He pauses, looks at the way she's tilting her head at him, slightly, can practically see the thoughts whizzing around behind her eyes. Before she can ask, he says, "And no, I’m not going to tell you how it started."

"Are you certain?" she asks. "It could be very cathartic. I'm a very good person to talk to about these sorts of things, you know."

Kurt's heart warms at that, just a little. Rachel may be a little intense, but her heart is always, always in the right place. It's good to be reminded that at least one of his best friends is with him right now. And better Rachel than Mercedes. That would just – that would be such a mess right now. "Just – suffice to say that it happened."

"So – is that where you disappeared to at Santana's party?"

"I didn't think anyone noticed," Kurt says, weakly.

"I'm very perceptive, even when I’m drunk," Rachel says, seriously. "It's one of my many talents. I'm sure that not very many other people noticed."

"That makes me feel so much better," Kurt drawls. 

Rachel elbows him, but her face softens. "Do you miss him?"

And, well. "Yeah," Kurt says. "Yeah. I miss him a lot."

And Rachel gives him a little pouty, sad expression before pulling him into a hug.

+++

It feels better, knowing that someone who lives literally one floor down from him in the NYADA dorms knows what's going on with Kurt. He tries not to draw too many parallels to anything that happened in high school with boys that are no longer in his life, but – knowing that Rachel knows, and that he can go to her if there is any fallout gives Kurt the strength to text Sam the truth: _I miss you a lot_.

When he wakes up in the morning, there are three texts waiting from Sam. _i miss u 2_ , one reads. _so much like u dont even know, its so weird 2 b so far away from u_. 

_im glad u told me_.

The last one gives Kurt a start. He still feels very strangely about their – whatever it was. Sam is obviously not entirely straight – and Kurt indulges in the memory of Sam's mouth stretching around his cock, tongue swirling around its head, licking up precome and making Kurt shiver – and he does seem to like Kurt a lot.

But Kurt can't be sure of why, or how much. It was easier to ignore all the pesky little questions of What are we doing? and How do you feel? when they were living in the same house, breathing the same air, smoking the same joints, and generally in each other's' personal space more than Kurt has ever had someone in his space before, even Blaine. It was easier to forget that Sam, despite being his best friend, was still this unknown quantity – he liked Kurt as a friend, and was obviously attracted to him, because of all the kissing and boners and everything; that much was clear. 

Less clear was if Sam felt anything more for him. Texts like the ones that are practically staring at Kurt from his phone right now make him feel like, well, maybe there's something else there, something besides friendship and sex and maybe a tiny little crush.

But then again, Kurt might just be overthinking everything. "im glad u told me" might not indicate that Sam was waiting for Kurt to admit that he missed the other boy. The text about being far away from each other is probably just platonic – they _are_ best friends. 

There is a hollow, sinking feeling deep in Kurt's chest that he can't identify. That he refuses to identify.

He texts back: _I know, I'm still not used to seeing you every day_.

And then he doesn't hear back from Sam for twelve hours, which probably means he overstepped or something, and god, why does this all have to be so hard?

Why is he this worked up about this?

Rachel drags him out to a bar that night, a look of such a peculiar form of determination on her face that Kurt thinks she might be making his cheerfulness her new project.

"Santana's meeting us there," she tells him, as they near a place that will presumably sell to underage patrons without fake IDs. "Apparently Columbia is really boring tonight. Don't worry, I didn't tell her about Sam."

"Are you trying to surround me with people from home?" Kurt asks, jokingly, but Rachel's complete silence is a very telling response. "You are, aren't you?"

"I know there are only a very few of us in the city," Rachel says. "This year, at least. But you need to distract yourself, even if it's not with another man, and I'm relatively certain that getting drunk is one of Santana's special talents."

"Fine," Kurt says, rolling his eyes. He's not entirely opposed to Rachel's plan, though, not really. Not with his phone still displaying the unanswered text he'd sent Sam that morning.

They do shots of tequila, crowded around a tiny table in this nondescript bar, sharing stories about classes so far and not saying a word about people back home. Kurt's just finished his fourth when suddenly, he smells the now-familiar sweet smoke of pot coming from somewhere in the room.

His stomach clenches in a way that's entirely unrelated to the alcohol. Smoke and Sam are all tied up in his mind, and he can't tell if he wants to smoke up now or if he actually just wants to be with Sam, or both. But he made a promise, so instead, he texts Sam _I smell pot I wanna smoke with you so bad right now_.

A minute later, his phone is buzzing with an incoming call. It's Sam. "'Scuse me," he says to Rachel and Santana, and he ducks out of the bar, which, though not terribly noisy, is also not terribly quiet, and onto the street.

"Kurt," Sam says. Kurt presses a hand to his free ear, so that he can hear Sam better over the sounds of the city. 

"Sam!" Kurt says. "Hey, Sam, hi, Sam. Hi."

Sam laughs. Kurt's heart pounds a little extra harder – god, he's missed Sam's laugh so much. "Are you drunk?"

"Maaaaaybe," Kurt admits, because, well, he kind of is. Four shots is a lot for a guy who doesn't drink much, especially four shots in the relatively quick succession he's done them. "Rachel took me out to distract me and Santana's here too."

"Are you having fun?" Sam asks. Kurt just wants to curl up in his voice forever. That's not weird, right?

"No, you're not here," he tells him. "I mean, yes, but not as much fun. I guess. Why can't you be here right now?"

"I wish I could," Sam says, voice tight. "God, Kurt, you have no idea."

"So tell me," Kurt says, impulsively. "Tell me how much you want to be here right now."

"Are you sure you want to hear about that?" Sam asks, hesitantly. 

Kurt has no idea why Sam would even ask that question. It's such a stupid question. "That is such a stupid question," he tells him. "Of course I want to hear about how you should be here with me instead of in dumb Kentucky, because it's _true_. It's a true story."

"I want to be with you," Sam says, slowly, hesitantly. "So much. It's all I think about, sometimes."

"This wasn't supposed to be so hard," Kurt says, abruptly. "It was just going to – turn off. You know? It's not turning off."

"What's not turning off?" Sam asks, even more hesitantly. 

"I," Kurt says. "I can't like – I didn't think – Fuck, Sam." He can't come up with the words he needs to articulate his thoughts. He walks closer to the brick wall of the building the bar is in, tilts his forehead against it and pounds it, lightly, with a loosely-closed fist. Concentrate, Hummel. Concentrate. "You're on my mind, like, all the time. I can't stop – I thought I'd be able to stop. After we stopped."

"Kurt," Sam says, low and quiet, and Kurt's heart breaks, a little bit. "Are you – are you sure? It's not just the, the-"

"The tequila?" Kurt supplies, because it's beginning to sink in, how drunk he is. "Oh man, Sam, I’m so sorry, I totally drunk texted you and what if you were busy, I’m taking up your time with this call-"

"I'm the one who called you," Sam reminds him. He exhales, a shuddery breath. "You're cute when you're drunk."

Kurt can feel his cheeks heating up. "Thanks," he says, and he falls silent for a moment, trying to think of something else to say, when something occurs to him. "Um, Rachel knows. She managed to figure it out. Um. About us."

"Oh," Sam says, and he's starting to say something else – Kurt's insides are shuddering; what if Sam is upset? He wouldn't blame him, not one bit, this wasn't just his secret to tell, oh god, why did he tell Rachel again? – but Kurt can't hear what Sam is saying, because it's at that moment that Santana pushes the door to the bar open and looks around.

"Oh, there you are, Hummel," she says. "Get back in here, Berry is threatening to drag us to karaoke and I need backup."

"I'm kind of on the phone," Kurt says, gesturing with his phone towards his phone, which – doesn't exactly work, but he's sure she gets the point.

She rolls her eyes. "You can call your secret boyfriend or whoever it is back later."

"Um," Kurt says, but she's striding toward him and taking his phone from his hand.

"Sorry, babe, but Hummel's got to go, we have a situation on our hands – oh, hey Sam. What's up?" Santana's giving Kurt this weird expression, a sort of half-frown, half-speculative look. "Uh-huh. Okay. Sure. No, Rachel's trying to drag us go karaoke, to distract her from how much she misses that giant wuss of a boyfriend of hers, so – yeah, I thought you'd understand. Bye, now." She hangs up and tosses the phone back at Kurt with a smirk. "He says to call back later or whatever," she says. "Now get back in here, we need to do at least three more shots each and keep Rachel away from all music-making devices."

"Fine," Kurt says. He's so confused by how everything is going. He follows Santana back into the bar.

By some sort of blessing, Santana doesn't question him further, about why he basically bolted from the bar and ended up on the phone with Sam. The pot smell has dissipated too, mostly, and Kurt manages to get through three or four more shots – he loses count – before they head back. Santana tags along – she's too drunk to take the subway all the way back uptown to Columbia alone and she doesn't want to pay for a cab, so she's crashing with Rachel.

And Kurt is calling Sam back.

Luckily, his roommate, a guy from Idaho who is, impossibly, even taller than Finn, seems to be out with his girlfriend for the night. So Kurt doesn’t feel badly about crawling into his bed after brushing his teeth and calling Sam.

Sam answers on the third ring. "Hello?" he says, and he sounds super tired.

Kurt feels badly. "Oh, did I wake you up?"

"No, don't worry," Sam says. He sounds more awake now. "I was watching Firefly to kill time. I wasn't asleep, just… drowsing."

Kurt giggles, because drowsing is a funny word. "Hi," he says, again.

"Hey, drunky," Sam says, fondly. "How much did you have?"

"Lots and lots of shots," Kurt tells him. "Like seven or eight or something, I don't remember."

"Oh, I see," Sam says. His voice is so warm, Kurt just wants to roll up in it like it's a big blanket. "Hmmm. Are you too drunk to talk?"

"No no no no _no_ ," Kurt says, emphatically. "I like your voice, it shouldn't go away."

Sam chuckles at that. "I like your voice too, Kurt."

"Yeah, but it's not super sexy like yours, Samuel," Kurt says. God, he's so drunk. When did they swap out his mattress with a water bed? He's pretty sure he'd remember them doing that. "I'm pretty sure you don't get hard just from hearing my voice."

There's a long silence – long enough that Kurt has to go back and think about what he just said, and _oh_. He's about to apologize, when Sam says, "You get hard just from hearing my voice?"

"Sometimes," Kurt admits. He's not hard now, not really, but his dick is definitely taking interest in this discussion of erections. He reaches down, presses a hand flat against the front of his pants to encourage the way he's slowly stiffening.

"God, Kurt, that's so – you're so hot," Sam says. "Your voice is real sexy too, you know."

Yeah, Kurt's cock is definitely getting interested. "What are you wearing right now?" he asks, because he needs a visual.

Sam laughs. "Are we um. Are we doing this?"

"Doing what?" Kurt asks. "Phone sex? Because yes, we should. If you want. I miss you."

"Boxers," Sam says. "The Captain America ones. Nothing else; the dorms are weirdly hot lately."

Kurt can picture this, so, so well, with Sam's abs and Sam's face and Sam's legs – and the way the little shield sits squarely over Sam's crotch, the way Sam's cock pushes the decal out in front of everything else when he's hard, the way that Sam would be biting the corner of his lower lip when Kurt fits his hand over the shield and, by extension, Sam's cock, feeling the weight of it in his hand. 

Kurt is fully hard by now, and Sam's asking what he's wearing, so he tells him about the gray skinny jeans he was too confused to push off, but that he's working on unbuttoning and unzipping them now, how he'll probably end up just sleeping in his boxer-briefs and maybe the shirt under his sweater, if that comes off, too. "The sweater, by the way, is that one you said looked really good on me," Kurt says. "Should I take it off?"

"Yeah," Sam says. "Yeah. It looks better when it's off of you. You should take off your pants and shirt, too."

"Okay," Kurt says. "Okay. I've got to put the phone down for this. I have like, no coordination right now."

He balances his phone carefully on his pillow and crawls back out of bed to push his pants down and step out of them, holding onto the side of his bed as he does so, because he's pretty sure that he'd fall down otherwise. He pulls off his sweater and his shirt and leaves them on the floor – his dick is like, practically pulling him back to the phone at this point. 

"I'm naked," he tells Sam, once he's back in bed. "Well. Mostly. No pants, no shirts, just underwear. But I'm so hard that my cock is apparently trying to push those off."

Sam makes a quiet noise into the phone. "Are you touching yourself?" he asks, hoarsely. 

Kurt hesitates, long enough to push his boxer-briefs down with his free hand, far enough that his cock bobs free. He wraps a hand loosely around himself, moving it up and down slowly. " _Yesss_ ," he says, biting a lip hard.

"Me too," Sam says, and Kurt pictures Sam's hands wrapping around his thick cock, moving up and down in deliberate, fast motions, twisting near the top, collecting precome and spreading it over the shaft. 

He groans. "I wish I could kiss you," he says, picturing Sam's lips, how they feel when he kisses them. His hand tightens around his own cock and he starts moving it faster, imagining Sam's tongue stroking into his mouth, against his tongue.

"Me too," Sam says, again. "Kurt, I want to kiss you so bad."

"I want to touch you," Kurt says. "I want to wrap my hand around your dick and like, stroke it and then I want to kiss my way down your chest and lick you and suck you off until you come in my mouth." 

"Lick your palm," Sam says, abruptly, so Kurt pauses his frenetic movements to do so. "Keep touching yourself, now. Pretend it's my mouth on you."

Kurt groans out loud at that, "Sam," he says, twisting his hand at the top of his cock, just so. His hips rise off the bed, and he starts moving his hand even faster, picturing that it's Sam's mouth that's tight and hot and wet around his dick, his tongue swirling around the end, instead of Kurt's hand.

He can feel his balls tightening, just a bit. "I'm gonna come," he gasps into the phone. Two more jerks of his fist and he's coming in thick spurts over his fist, groaning uncontrollably as he does so.

"Fuck – did you just -?" Sam asks, and Kurt just nods, even though Sam basically can't see him right now.

Finding his voice, he says, "So hard, but not as good as if you were here."

And then he can hear the stutter in Sam's voice as he _breathes_ , "Oh, shit," and then there's just the sound of Sam's breath, increasingly heavy and erratic, until Kurt hears a mild groan and he's so sure that Sam is coming, too.

"Did you-?" he asks.

And Sam says, "Yes, but I wish you could have been here for all of that."

"Me too, Sam," Kurt says. "Me too."

+++

Kurt wakes up the next morning with one hand sticky with come and the other clutching his phone. Shit, he must have fallen asleep while he was on the phone with – someone. Sam? – last night.

There's a text waiting for him. _god kurt last nite was the best. btw i have a lot of papers n stuff coming up so i wont be able 2 talk as much but ill try to ok?_

The night starts slowly coming back to Kurt as he showers off the stench of booze and sweat and bar, and brushes his teeth, and drinks lots of water. He talked to Sam on the phone twice – which his call history confirms – and he did a _lot_ of shots, and he also maybe had phone sex with Sam.

He's not sure about the details of their conversations, outside of a vague idea of what happened during their sex. He hopes that Sam's text isn't just a polite way of backing away from something Kurt may have said last night.

Sam's texts that day and the next, though, don't have a noticeably different tone from the texts Kurt's been getting all semester, so maybe not. They're just… less frequent

And they stay that way, but that's okay. Kurt's getting into the busy part of his semester, too, which means draft after draft after draft of set design interspersed with hours of reading about historical contexts for drama. He texts Sam during breaks, but it's not the same near-constant flow that it was at the beginning of the term.

He tells himself he doesn't mind. He makes new friends. He hangs out with Rachel regularly and, occasionally, Santana as well. He starts Skyping Sam every Sunday afternoon, just to see his face again. They only have one hour of overlapping time free, but they augment it with phone calls and texts whenever they can. 

The day before Kurt's big set design midterm project is due, he holes himself up in the NYADA scene shop. He's drawn and redrawn the design so many times he could do it in his sleep, probably, but the diorama is trickier than he anticipated. 

He's just cracking his neck after finally setting a tricky yet small piece and thinking about taking a break for a quick and somewhat belated dinner when his phone signals a text message. 

It's from Sam, of course. It reads _i miss u, ur lips and ur hand an ur hair and ur laugh_.

Kurt realizes, belatedly, that this is the first text message that Sam's sent him all day, and that he hasn't sent Sam any, either. Quickly, he types _I miss you too._ and hits Send.

Sam's response is practically immediate. _what do u miss most_.

And that's a toughie, because Kurt misses _so much_ about Sam, but, outside of sex with him and, by extension, his cock, it's hard to articulate what exactly that might be. Finally, he settles on _Your smile. Your eyes. You._ He hits send, then immediately sends a follow-up message. _It's impossible to just pick one thing, sorry_.

He gets Sam's reply when he's in the middle of packing all of his stuff up twenty minutes later and heading to dinner. _i know its hard dude, im just that great ;). u r 2 of course. i miss u, talk later?_

And they do manage a quick phone call that night, just to say good night, and for Sam to wish Kurt luck on finishing his project. After that day, though, their communications get still more infrequent. They still Skype, but their phone calls are even shorter and more infrequent, and are usually cut off well before Kurt is ready – there's one four-day stretch when someone comes to his room, or to Sam's room, demanding attention in some way or another literally less than one minute after they call each other every day. 

At the start of the semester, they texted twenty times a day at _least_. Now it's more like twenty times a week.

Kurt tells himself that this is a good thing, because he's forced to spend more time with people in his classes in order to distract himself. He hangs out with Santana more than he ever thought he would before getting to New York, too – she has a credit card with an absurd daily spending limit, and when the weather starts really changing, she takes him and Rachel out on several shopping trips, trying to find the perfect scarves and mittens to match their coats, and trying on approximately thirty million pairs of boots for fun. 

Sam texts Kurt in spurts depending on his schedule, and Kurt responds in kind. They still try to give each other heads ups before a period of trailing off, though, so when Kurt gets a text in late October that says _i have a huge calc exam mon., ill be busy studying for the rest of the week jsyk_ , he's sad, but he understands.

 _On the weekend with all the Halloween parties? That sucks .Try to get to one & pretend I forced you to go,_ he replies. 

_lol ill try dude. miss u call u Monday_.

Before Sam can call him on Monday, though, everything changes.

+++

Kurt goes to the best costume party of his life the Saturday before Halloween. He's dressed as James Dean, down to a fake cigarette he smuggled out of the props room earlier that week. Rachel, of course, does Elphaba, and Santana crashes with some of her friends from Columbia, "because you performing arts nerds will probably have a gayer and better party than anyone uptown," dressed in some tight black and red leather number with pale face makeup and red, red lips, and she tells him – tiny fangs poking from her mouth as she speaks – that she is vampire Willow, the sexiest gay to grace her TV screen when she was young and impressionable. 

He gets a little drunk but he's not nearly as far gone as he could be – he wants to stay sober enough to avoid drunk dialing Sam and interrupting his studying. A guy who is admittedly _quite_ aesthetically pleasing, and who is dressed like Jareth, down to the unforgivable mullet derivative, corners him for about twenty minutes, attempting flirtation, and Kurt is admittedly tempted – dude is _fine_ , hair aside – but he can feel his phone pressing against his arm, rolled into his sleeve like a pack of cigarettes, and on the other side of that phone is _Sam_ , beautiful Sam who is swamped with work and whose fingers are so strong, cupping around Kurt's head when they kiss, so he just smiles tightly at the guy and changes the subject, eventually excusing himself to refill his [solo cup goblet](http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2wbjovnxx1qltiyzo1_500.jpg).

Santana crashes in his room that night, wiggling out of her tight leather get-up and into a set of his laundry-day sweats and passing out pressed against him. The dorm-issue bed is small, but neither of them are very large, and she did crash with Rachel last time. So.

Anyway, it's nice, sleeping next to a warm body again. It's nothing like sleeping – or waking up – next to Sam, though. Which is why, when Kurt wakes up in the morning with a bit of a hangover, he carefully crawls around Santana's feet to sit at his desk and look at Sam's facebook profile for probably the ten thousandth time.

Sam's been tagged in some new pictures, so Kurt clicks over to check them out. 

They were uploaded literally five minutes earlier, apparently. It looks like some kind of Halloween party, given the outlandish outfits everyone is wearing – which means that Sam listened to Kurt's advice, which is good ( _though it might have been nice if he told me about it so we could text during it_ , a tiny part of Kurt's mind supplies, but he forces himself to not think that). He's wearing khakis and a brown shirt with wide suspenders, high boots, and some kind of holster belt. 

Kurt can't figure the costume out, not at first, but then he sees a brown coat slung over Sam's arm and remembers the handful of days over the summer when Sam sat him down and made him watch "the most badass TV show ever, and the even more badass movie sequel." So he's – Mal something or another, from Firefly.

It looks like his costume is part of a group concept, which is interesting, because Kurt didn't think Sam would really have time to plan something like that out, but there are the people around him in other costumes that Kurt vaguely remembers from the show. 

He clicks through the pictures, a faint smile on his face, because Sam is seriously cute in this get-up, even if he's kind of confused about how long Sam had actually been planning on going to this party – group costumes aren't planned in just a day, but Sam had indicated he had no plans to go out over the weekend earlier.

God, Kurt really needs to get rid of this fucking hangover.

As the album progresses, Sam gets obviously drunker. He starts moving closer and closer to the girl in the beautiful gown – Inara, Kurt's memory supplies, though the tagged name is Sarah Bratzel – their hands tangling about three-quarters through the album, Sam's arm moving around her shoulders in the next picture.

Well, that's weird. 

Nothing prepares Kurt for the picture after that, though, where Sam and this Sarah character are pressed tight, torso to torso, arms around each other. Sam's head is tilted down towards Sarah's, his eyes closed.

And in the next picture, she's kissing his cheek, dangerously close to his lips.

There's one caption, from the person who uploaded the pictures: _Awwww, you guys are so cute ;P_.

Kurt doesn't even realize that his hands are over his mouth and he's making a high-pitched weird _noise_ until Santana stirs, and then lifts her head.

"Shut up, Kurt," she mumbles, and Kurt, realizing what he's doing, swallows hard and forces himself to stop whatever noise it is that he's making.

He can't click away from the picture. There's Sam's beautiful perfect lips, twisting into some kind of smile. He's bright red, probably from dancing and from drink, hair messy, one suspender starting to slip over his shoulder. The girl's dark curly hair is falling over her face, a little, but he can still her red lipstick on her thin lips, the slight hollow of her cheeks as she presses them to either Sam's cheek or the corner of his mouth, Kurt can't really tell. One of her hands is visible, cupping Sam's shoulder, a loose silver bracelet resting a quarter of the way down her forearm. 

Her fingernails match her lipstick.

Kurt can't look away.

So this is why Sam was saying he was studying all weekend. He didn't want Kurt to interrupt – this. 

God. Kurt's been keeping Sam from what he really wants.

He can't help but make a dejected sort of groan as he lets his face fall into his hands and starts massaging his temples.

"Kurt?" Santana mumbles, from the bed.

"Sorry," he says quickly, lifting his head back up again. "Sorry, I'll be, um. I'll be quieter."

She's propping herself up on an elbow before he can even finish speaking, though. "Are you like, okay and shit?"

No, he isn't. God, Sam's with a girl, that's why he's been so quiet lately – he just doesn’t know how to tell Kurt that he's realized that he doesn't really like guys after all and that boobs are where it's at or something, so he's trying to be nice to Kurt, but god, Kurt's been holding Sam back.

And now he's lost in thought and Santana is leaning forward, trying to get a look at his computer screen. He slams the laptop case shut. "I'm fine," he says, stiffly. 

Santana frowns. Her makeup from last night is smeared all under her eyes and she looks like a raccoon, and the effect would be almost comical if it weren't for the way that Kurt kind of hates himself a lot right now, for all of this. "Was that—"

"No, it wasn't," Kurt interrupts, because he doesn't want to talk about it. "Um. I'm going to, like, go for a walk or whatever. If I'm not back by the time you want to leave, just… lock the door behind you."

He's halfway to the door when Santana says, "Hummel, get back here."

"What?" he says, not moving back toward her, but not moving on toward the door, either.

"Get your ass back over by this bed, Kurt, before I drag it back here myself," Santana snaps, and Kurt's not exactly in an argumentative mood, so he goes. She scoots back against the wall and stares him down until he gets back on the bed and lies down, facing her. "Better," she says, and then she leans her head in really close and hisses, "Don't fucking tell anyone this, Hummel, but sometimes I just needs to get my cuddle on, and since Britt's in fuckin' LA, you're probably the only person I can find who'll cuddle without trying to cop a feel. So we're going to cuddle and you can just not tell me what's going on or whatever you want, but I have a hangover and I want to be in as good a mood as possible for when Berry comes barging on up here for coffee. Entiendes?"

Kurt rolls his eyes, because Santana is as transparent as plastic wrap right now, but he does let her turn around until he's spooning her, one arm across her waist. He even manages to doze off for a bit.

He still begs off when Rachel does eventually come up, looking for someone to go on a Starbucks run with her, instead encouraging Santana to go with her.

And when she's gone, he wallows.

+++

It's not like Kurt isn't aware that he should talk to Sam and hear what Sam has to say about everything. God, Kurt has watched _Gone With The Wind_ once a year every year, ever since he found out it was his mom's favorite movie. He's read books and seen modern rom-coms and dramas. He knows that miscommunication is really easy and often the downfall of a relationship, even one as epic as Rhett's and Scarlett's. 

He knows this, but there's this little voice in the back of his mind that keeps insisting that if he doesn't confront Sam, he doesn't have to think about what he saw. That Sam won't have to feel compelled to lie to make Kurt happy, because Sam would. He would lie in a heartbeat about his sexuality and whatever was going on in that picture because he wouldn't want Kurt to be sad.

And Kurt doesn't want Sam to be sad for his sake.

It's just – he's pretty sure there's no way to misinterpret those pictures, combined with the way that Sam said that he wouldn't be able to do anything over the weekend, or whatever it is that he texted. And, if he's being entirely honest, deep down, even deeper than the fear that Sam will lie to keep Kurt happy, is the fear that Sam _won't_ lie. 

Kurt just really doesn’t want Sam to tell him, to his face, that he's replacing Kurt with a girl. 

And then Kurt remembers that they broke up at the end of the summer and that he has no true hold on Sam anymore. Despite all their conversations about lingering feelings, and despite their friendship, they're not actually together.

God. Kurt feels like such an idiot. He doesn’t have any say in who Sam dates. Sam probably didn't even think twice about going to this party with this girl, because no matter how much Kurt was still thinking like Sam was his – whatever (and it's obviously not a hookup or just a friend he happens to have sex with, like, that is growing abundantly clear to Kurt, the more he thinks about it. He _feels_ too much for it to be that), Sam was remembering the part where Kurt refused to give him one lass kiss because their summer tryst was over.

Kurt is still morosely turning things over and over in his mind when Sam calls, as promised, on Monday afternoon. 

So Kurt doesn't answer his phone.

He listens to the voicemail, though, because he can't not.

"Hey, Kurt, it's Sam – um, I'm calling because I told you I'd call after I finished my calc exam? I think it went well, so that's good – I'm sorry to have missed you, I could have sworn that you're usually free now. Oh well. Call me back when you get this, okay? There's something I want to talk to you about. Um, but I don't want to take up all your voicemail space or whatever, so – I'll tell you when you call back. Bye."

God.

So Sam does want to talk about the girl, after all. 

Fuck.

He goes to meet Rachel and a couple of their friends for dinner and leaves his phone in his room. He fakes cheerfulness, shrugs off with "I expect I'll find out soon enough," when she asks him how Sam is doing, because he does _not_ want to talk about it, and strikes up a conversation about the ethical use of strobe lighting for certain performances with the improbably straight guy from his Development of the American Musical class. It ends up lasting longer than expected, and by the time he gets back to his room – and his phone – there are a couple of texts from Sam waiting for him: _hey kurt u ok? txt me back or something_ and _hey did u get my msg?_

 _Super busy, sorry, talk later?_ Kurt replies, because he knows he can't put this off forever but he doesn't want to face it now.

 _ok just let me know, i miss u_ Sam texts, and Kurt thinks, yeah, I'll bet.

He doesn’t text Sam at all that week, because he doesn't want to hear Sam's voice confirming his worst fears. He does compose twenty-three responses to Sam's text, all of which he saves in his drafts instead of sending, because they make no sense ( _I just can't, like I don't know, oh fuck this, I don't have words for what I'm thinking right now_ ) or because they're things that he's not ready to say to Sam yet ( _I really like you and I hoped you really liked me too_ ).

Rachel corners him after their shared class on Thursday. "You're going to help me with my project for Costume Construction, since you're good at that kind of stuff and you'll be taking the class next semester anyways, so it's good practice that will ultimately benefit you. I'll help you run lines for Intro during breaks so that you're also getting your work done."

Kurt blinks. "And what if I'm busy?"

Rachel pauses. "Are you? I didn't think you were, but I could be wrong."

Kurt sighs. "I'm not," he says. "My workload doesn't really pick up until halfway through next week."

"Great!" Rachel says, her tone belying the really weird expression that briefly crosses her face. "Come on, I'll buy you coffee for your trouble." She loops her arm through his and leads him outside and into the closest Starbucks, explaining her assignment as they go. Once she's bought their coffee, they head up to her room, where she spreads out her swatches and gets out her tape measure. "Stand still," she warns, and starts to take Kurt's measurements, marking them in a little notebook as she goes. 

She's on his arms when the questions start coming. "So how's stuff with Sam?" she asks.

Kurt stiffens. "Fine," he says, but his tone is flat and Rachel catches on.

"Good fine or you don't want to talk about it fine?"

Kurt considers how he wants to answer the question – he really shouldn't be talking to Rachel about this – he and Sam still haven't really talked about the fact that Rachel even _knows_ , outside of establishing the fact that she does know – but like, he really wants to be able to talk about it. "The second," he says, finally. 

"Well, what's going on, then?" she asks, cautiously. "Are you both getting really busy or something?"

"I guess," he says. "We haven't really been talking much this week."

"That's too bad," she says, sympathetically, moving down to his torso with the measuring tape. "I know that Finn and I are also really busy. At least he still texts every day and calls whenever he has a couple of minutes, right?"

"He hasn't been," Kurt says, flatly, even though he knows she's technically talking about Finn.

"Oh," Rachel says. This news apparently doesn’t daunt her, though. She measures the width of his shoulders and says, "Has he been ignoring your messages? That's not very nice."

"I haven't really been sending him texts either," Kurt admits. "Or calling. I don't know. I just – I thought – never mind."

"No, tell me!" Rachel says, earnestly. "I'm a very good listening ear and I do occasionally give good advice. You know. If you want that."

"Thanks," Kurt says, grudgingly. Persistent though she is, he honestly doesn't know how he'd be doing with the whole NYADA thing if Rachel weren't there too, ready to drag him out when he needs a break or to press him to talk about what's going on when he's getting too deep in his head or to remind him to network whenever they head over to NYU to capitalize on the few connections that Tisch has that NYADA does not have. He'd survive, of course, and do well, but – it's nice to have a friend who already knows all the high school drama. It's nice to not have to explain all the backstory of everything to someone, like he finds himself doing regularly with the new friends he's making.

It's just really nice to have one of his best friends, someone who undoubtedly has his back and who is no longer competing directly with him for roles and internships, with him in New York and at NYADA.

So. He decides to tell. "I um. Have you seen the pictures of him from Halloween?"

"No, I can't say that I have," Rachel says. She's apparently done with the measurements, because she rolls up the measuring tape and sits down in front of the fabric swatches, motioning for him to join her. "While normally I'd be keeping up with everyone on Facebook and making sure that I still know what's going on in their lives, I've sadly been a little distracted with homework lately. Santana mentioned that it was interesting, though. I'm assuming she meant the costumes" 

"Yes, me too," Kurt says, picking up a square of gingham and wrapping it around his wrist, over and over again. "Um, he was like, practically kissing this girl in them. So like, I guess he's decided that he would prefer that now or whatever. She was cute enough. They had matching costumes, part of a group thing. They were very close, you know, physically. And I guess I just don't want to hear him tell me that he's not really interested in me. I'm so _done_ with guys picking other people over me. You know, even though Sam and I were never really, you know. Boyfriends." He sighs, putting the fabric back down, because if he keeps worrying at it, he'll probably end up fraying it. "I'm just – Rachel, Blaine left me for Sebastian. I just don't want to have to hear Sam say he's leaving me for this Sarah person. Even though we essentially already broke up."

Rachel's silent for a little while, and so is Kurt. She starts sorting her swatches by color, even though that has nothing to do with her assignment at hand. "How do you know she wasn't just, oh, a friend?"

"They were _very_ close," he says, flatly. "They were – I just – I know, okay?"

"And you haven't given him a chance to tell you anything about what might be going on?"

"Oh my God, Rachel, are you really blaming me for this?" Kurt asks, bristling.

"I mean to do no such thing, as well you know," Rachel says, archly. "If I did want to make it sound like I actually blamed you – which I don't, and I fail to see how blame can factor into this situation at all, at least from my part – I'd point out that you both agreed that you weren't together at the beginning of the semester and you didn't set any rules about being single and also not, you know, mingling. You just don't want to hear logic right now. You don't know anything for sure about the nature of their relationship, yes? Why not just let Sam explain it to you?"

"Because I want to wait till I'm ready to hear why he's with her," Kurt says, flatly.

"He might not be-" Rachel starts, but Kurt is done with this conversation.

"Let's change the topic," he says. "Thank you for your insight, but – let's just focus on work right now, okay?"

"Fine," Rachel says, even though she obviously doesn't want to drop the subject. She sits still, staring at the pile of fabric for a moment, before leaning sideways and pulling Kurt into a one-armed hug. "Let's run your lines for a little while."

+++

Kurt manages to avoid actually talking to Sam for almost another week. Sam texts him sporadically, mostly along the lines of sharing observations from his day ( _the girl at the starbucks in line in front of me has a FERRET in her purse im pretty sure_ ) but also probing Kurt, asking when he might be available to talk.

He doesn't respond to a single text, just saves his replies into his drafts again.

That is, until he receives the one text he did _not_ want to get.

 _i dont think i can do this anymore_.

Kurt's stomach bottoms out. He's been counseling himself to let go for several weeks now, but those eight words glaring up at him are like a punch to the gut, or like a slap to the face, or any other cliché simile that ends up leaving him with the sick certainty that _he doesn't want this_.

He thought he could minimize his role in Sam's life, or vice versa, and bow out and let Sam live like those pictures indicate he should. But he was wrong. He doesn't want to bow out. He can't

He stares at the text for a full five minutes, the world quietly shattering around him, before he jabs the call button on his phone. 

Sam answers immediately. "Hi," he says. His voice is thick, and there's some extra noise in the background, that sounds like voices.

"Is someone in your room?" Kurt asks, because he's really not sure why he called Sam, or why Sam answered, or, well, anything. "I can go, you know, if—"

"No, that's just my music," Sam says. "Here, let me turn it down."

But he turns it up instead of down, at first, and before he snaps it off (based on the sudden silence on the line), Kurt recognizes his own voice – the recordings he'd sent Sam when he was trying to get a duet with him two years earlier.

"Sam," he whispers. "Sam."

"What do you want?" Sam asks. His voice is practically ringing in Kurt's ear now that the background music is off. Now, Kurt can tell that it's not just thick – it sounds rough, too. Almost as if Sam had been… but no, that's impossible. Why would Sam be crying?

"What did you mean?" Kurt asks. "With your text."

Sam's silent for a long moment. "I mean I don't hear from you for a week and you don't respond to any of my messages, not even once, and – I mean, sure, something might have come up but you didn't sound like you were going to have a busy week, and maybe I’m wrong, but I can't shake the feeling that you're punishing me for something and I don't know what it is, and I don't know if that's true or not, but – I just need to know."

"I just." Kurt pauses to collect himself, then decides to bite the bullet. "Who was that girl in the pictures from Halloween? Because like – I don't – I just didn't want to have to hear you say if like – if she's – you know," he finishes, miserably. Words are not really working for him right now.

"Who, Sarah?" Sam asks.

"Yeah."

"She's just a friend, Kurt," Sam says, slowly. 

"But," Kurt says. "The pictures –"

"She's gay," Sam says, flatly. "And damn it, Kurt, I know we… ended things, technically, but the way we'd been talking made me think – maybe I was wrong, but I thought we might still – and even if we didn't, or couldn't, I wouldn't be able to, to cheat on you like that, or whatever it's called when you're not actually with the other person, because, like, Kurt – I'm in love with you. I couldn't do that to you."

Kurt feels kind of like he's going to throw up. This was not something that he actually expected to hear from Sam – ever, honestly. But it's just so completely unexpected that he can't help but believe it. "I – you are?"

"I – yes, I am, and I don't expect or need to hear it from you, but, Kurt, please –"

"Sam," Kurt says, helplessly. He's never let himself think about whether or not _love_ was a possibility, given the circumstances and the boundaries he's set for himself in this, this thing all along. "Sam."

"Please say something," Sam says. "I mean, besides my name, because that's not really – what are you thinking, Kurt?"

"I miss you," Kurt says, telling himself to speak without thinking for once. Overthinking could wreck wherever this conversation is going so, so easily. "I miss you so much. I don't really feel like I've been, you know, _single_ this entire semester, because I've been so, you know, emotionally invested despite our agreement that this was, um. That this was just a summer, oh, fling." He pauses, because speaking without thinking is _hard_ , and he needs to collect his thoughts. "Sam, you're not just my best friend. I mean – I don't think I really want you to be just my best friend? But the thought of anything long-distance scares me, and. I just really want to be able to see you again. I don't really want to talk about this over the phone. I think it's really important for us to talk about it in person."

"But I won't get to see you anytime soon, Kurt," Sam says. "I just – even if we see each other over Christmas break-"

"And I hope we do," Kurt interjects.

"Yeah. Well, even if we do, that's almost a month and a half still. I just – I don't know how much longer I can deal with this being so, you know, up in the air for so long." Sam sighs, loudly. "I don’t want to push you into anything or anything, but like – I can't do this week again."

"Me neither," Kurt says, quietly.

"Okay, so, like – what do we do?" Sam asks. "Do we like, continue on as we've been going until we see each other again?"

Kurt can tell that Sam wants him to say no, to say that he wants to take whatever this is to the next level right now, but – Kurt really needs this to be a face-to-face conversation. He doesn't want to be super non-budging either, though, so he contemplates possible middle grounds. "Maybe yes, but acknowledging that like… I really like you and you really like-"

"-Love," Sam corrects.

Kurt blushes. It's nice to hear, and he . " _Love_ me. So we wouldn’t, you know, get with other people, and we'd make a more concerted effort to stay in close contact, and – yeah."

In retrospect, he's definitely described an actual relationship. But he just – he wants to make the decision to put that label on what they are when they're in person, and able to actually see each other as they discuss whether long-distance is the route they want to take or not, rather than over the phone. It just – it seems like it will feel more special that way. 

Sam has the good sense not to point out the fact that Kurt has just described basically a long-distance relationship. "Okay," he says. "Okay, I can take that. As long as we find some way to hang out over Christmas break."

"Yes, please," Kurt says, immediately. 

"When do you think would work best?" Sam asks.

Kurt gets his planner from his desk and curls up with it and his phone on his bed. "Let's start with comparing when we're actually on vacation."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eventually, Kurt stops drifting. He feels like he's been fading in and out of sleep for hours, but when he opens his eyes, the clock on his nightstand indicates it's been more like forty-five minutes.
> 
> His cock indicates that it's time for round two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks forever to kristen and linds for holding my hands through this process and characterization-checking me on every turn.
> 
> sorry that this was such a long time ~~kumming~~ coming! a lot of stuff came out, but i hope that this chapter makes up for the wait ;)
> 
> i've also had some questions about this so i will officially confirm that although there's just one chapter left in this fic, i've already got a companion fic planned (same time period, different POV), as well as two to four futurefic (much shorter than this monster) ideas all in this 'verse.

As it turns out, they don't actually get to see each other until two days after Christmas. Sam offers to have his dad drive him back up, but Kurt is selfish and wants some alone time with Sam before everyone else swoops in to say hi – Kurt can't fathom anyone _not_ swooping in to see Sam again – so he drives down and meets Sam in Cincinnati, where his family is spending the day.

They have lunch with Sam's family at a fantastic bagel place near the University of Cincinnati. Sam's dad jokes, "As good as bagels in New York!" and Kurt smiles and says yes, even though they're good, but not _that_ good. 

Stacy tugs at Kurt's sleeve and asks him if he's seen the American Girl store, so he regales the family with stories of the Christmas window displays around the city, pulling out his phone to show some pictures of the better set-ups. Stevie and Stacy crowd in close to see each picture first, then take turns turning the phone around to show their parents.

Sam's sitting on the other side of the table, but he doesn't look at the phone. He looks at the way Stacy is resting her hand on Kurt's arm, the way Stevie is crowding in, and he meets Kurt's eyes over the phone as they hold it out. For a moment, Kurt can't read his expression, but then he smiles, slow and wide, and Kurt's stomach flips. 

After a couple more pictures, as they start getting ready to leave, Sam excuses himself to go to the bathroom. While he's gone, his mom turns to Kurt. "Thank you," she says. "For taking care of our son like you have been for the past two years."

Since the motel, then. Kurt shifts uncomfortably in his seat. He wonders if Sam's parents are aware of even half of the stuff they've done together. "Sam's done just as much for me," he says, finally. "He's a good friend."

"Well," she says. "His father and I really appreciate it."

"Of course," Kurt says. If they don't know about him and Sam – would her tune change if she was aware of their quasi-relationship?

Sam comes out then, though, before Kurt can start overthinking, and they say their goodbyes. His family heads off to the Cincinnati Museum Center, and Kurt and Sam stand in the parking lot, watching them go.

And then they turn to face each other. Kurt allows himself to really, truly _look_ at Sam for the first time since August.

Sam looks – he looks great. They've been talking regularly again, and although Sam hasn't told Kurt again that he loves him, he's certainly implied it multiple times, in multiple ways. 

Kurt hasn't said it back yet. He's still not sure that he's ready to.

He is, however, ready to step forward and meet Sam halfway, one hand going to Sam's waist and the other to his cheek. Sam tangles both of his hands in Kurt's hair, but Kurt doesn't even mind that Sam's messing up all the work he put into making it look good for him. He breathes in, deep and shuddery, because Sam's _here_ , under his fingertips, and they're okay.

They're okay.

Kurt's stomach churns as Sam leans forward and Kurt moves in to meet him, and then they're kissing and kissing and _kissing_ , lips parted, Kurt sucking Sam's lower lip into his mouth, grazing at it gently with his teeth and then soothing it with his tongue.

The feeling – it's indescribable. The sappy part of Kurt rather likes the thought that this feels like coming home, however scary and big that might be. Sam's lips feel wonderful under Kurt's, and Sam's hands curve around the back of Kurt's head beautifully, and god, Kurt has just missed this _so much_.

And there – just like the first time they made out in a parking lot – Sam is pushing Kurt against the car and his knee is slipping between Kurt's legs and oh god, they have to go _now_ , because there is no way they can get away with handjobs in the backseat in the middle of the day anywhere around here, and Kurt doesn’t want to explain a hotel room showing up on his debit card to his dad, and like – that's the direction this is heading fast. He's chubbing up in his pants. God. It's been so long.

"Sam," he says, finally pulling away from the kiss. "Sam. We need to – god. I need a moment, or else we'll be arrested for, like, having sex in a parking lot or something."

"I missed you so much," Sam whispers, burying his face in the curve of Kurt's neck. His eyelashes tickle against Kurt's skin; it's just as tantalizing and arousing as the kissing was, at this point.

"I missed you too," Kurt says, breathlessly. "Sam. Sam Sam Sam." He strokes the back of Sam's head, feels how Sam's hair is soft. It's a touch darker than it was at the end of the summer.

It's gorgeous. 

He starts shivering, though, and that's when Kurt realizes that even though it's unseasonably warm for late December, it's still really cold outside, so he unlocks the car and gestures for Sam to climb in. Sam's suitcase is already in the back, and _god_ , Kurt gets Sam for a whole week and a half, which is almost no time at all, considering that they essentially lived together for almost nine months, but after the past four months, it feels like a long time.

It won't be enough. Kurt feels that with every fiber in his body.

He navigates out of the parking space and toward the highway. Sam takes his hand when they're properly on their way, just kind of running his thumb over and over the skin of Kurt's thumb, and fuck but Kurt's glad that he had the brilliant idea to get his dad and Carole a trip to this really awesome bed and breakfast in Indiana for Christmas, because even just Sam's thumb moving lightly over his skin is turning Kurt on so, so much, and Kurt doesn't want to have the "so, my best friend who's been living with us off and on for the past year now is also a guy who I really like a lot and possibly maybe might even love but I'm not ready to think about that yet and oh yeah I want to fuck him but is it cool if he sleeps in my room tonight because I've really missed him?" talk, because he's pretty sure that is the quickest route to being cockblocked for Sam's entire visit.

Not that he's, like, _opposed_ to telling his parents about Sam. He just – well. Sex is a priority too, is all.

"So," Sam eventually says, as they draw closer to Dayton – it's a halfway point, so Kurt figures he'll pull over for a little while, because it's criminal that he can't kiss Sam while they're driving. "Um. Hi."

"Hi," Kurt says, flashing a smile in Sam's direction as he passes a car. "God, Sam, I can't believe you're actually here with me right now. I missed you so much."

It's so nice, that he can actually say that now, after spending so long bottling up those feelings because he wasn't allowed to feel things for Sam, his (mostly) straight friend. The fact that Sam is in love with him? It makes Kurt light up inside. There's still a certain amount of trepidation, but Kurt figures that's normal – he spent most of his life falling for straight guys, and then his first love left him for a cruel flirt who Kurt obviously didn't like. Once bitten, twice shy, right?

He's certainly not feeling as shy as he did when he and Sam started off on this thing. Since the phone call after that terrible week of miscommunication (or, well, zero communication, if Kurt's entirely honest with himself), they've had some very, er, _interesting_ phone conversations. Never about their relationship – Kurt was serious about needing to have that talk face-to-face, and he's needed all this time to think about everything seriously and carefully – but Kurt now has a general idea of how frequently Sam masturbates (every day, sometimes twice, depending on whether his roommate is around much), and what he thinks about when he's doing it (Kurt's face, Kurt's cock, Kurt kissing him and touching him, occasionally Chris Pine as Captain Kirk or Scarlet Johansson as Black Widow, Kurt in his shop uniform at the end of the day, a little sweaty, a little greasy, a little bedraggled). And, well. Kurt hates to admit it, but that's helped a lot with the whole being _convinced_ thing. 

"I missed you too," Sam says, smiling bashfully in the rearview. God, his smile. It's just so, so sweet. "I'm so happy that we have this time, you know. Together."

"Me too," Kurt says, squeezing Sam's hand a little bit. He wants to be able to have time with Sam like this all the time, and, well. Maybe that's telling. 

Maybe he does love Sam. He still doesn't want to face that possibility, though. At the end of this visit, Sam's going back to Kentucky and Kurt's going back to New York and they'll have a whole new semester of not seeing each other, and Kurt just dreads that so much. If he doesn’t think about whether he loves Sam or not, maybe it won't hurt as much, not being with him for those months.

But it's all so muddled in Kurt's head. Seeing Sam just confirms that he wants to be with him, officially, no matter what. Right now, in this very moment, he doesn't care how difficult long distance could be. Just… Sam is here, holding his hand, and Kurt hasn't felt this honest-to-god happy since he and Sam first started smoking together. Except Kurt's happier now, because then he was still kind of hung up on his breakup with Blaine, and now he's just hung up on Sam and Sam's hands and always, always Sam's mouth. 

He changes lanes, keeping an eye out for possible exits, because he really wants to kiss Sam right about now. 

And like, Sam has been so patient with him, not pressuring him for any deeper level of commitment than Kurt's been willing to give, not talking about love, since Kurt hasn't been ready for that, just… calling him regularly and texting him all the time and being perfectly charming and, well.

Fuck.

"So," Kurt says, glancing at Sam out of the corner of his eye, then back to the road. "How does that, um. Implied boyfriend offer stand? Is it still a possibility?"

Sam drops his hand and twists around to look at Kurt full, on. "Wait, are you serious?"

"Dead serious," Kurt says, chancing another glance at Sam. Sam is slackjawed, eyes wide. There are the barest hints of a smile starting to form on his face.

"Kurt," he says. " _God_ , Kurt, yes it still stands. I would – I would love that."

They're approaching an exit, so Kurt hits his turn signal and takes it. He pulls over in a McDonald's parking lot and puts in the emergency brake, turning the key in the ignition so the car is mostly off, but the heat is still running. He glances at Sam, then clamors over the console into the bench backseat. "I need to kiss you," he explains, lamely, and watches as Sam's eyes light up even more, if that's even possible. Sam climbs back to join him. 

They sit side by side for a moment, before Kurt says, "Screw it," and moves onto Sam's lap, facing him directly, chest pressing against Sam's chest, groin brushing against Sam's groin. And like, they're in a public parking lot, and there are other cars, but none of them are particularly close to Kurt's car, so that and his tinted back windows make him feel comfortable in pressing forward and kissing Sam _hard_ , putting all those months of confusion and doubt and just plain _missing_ Sam behind it. 

Sam's lips part under his, and Kurt takes advantage of this to scrape his teeth along them and then gently tug his lower lip into his mouth, sucking at it for a moment before Sam starts taking over the kiss. He wraps a hand around the back of Kurt's head and rests the other on the small of Kurt's back and pulls him in closer, running his tongue across where Kurt is still focusing on Sam's lower lip until his mouth parts and Sam's tongue darts in.

Kurt gets lost in the slide of Sam's mouth, the press of Sam's pursed lips against his own, and he almost doesn't realize that he's starting to move his hips against Sam's until his dick twitches in his pants, and oh.

They're still in a McDonalds parking lot, and Kurt is starting to stiffen up again.

"Fuck," he says, breaking the kiss and resting his forehead against Sam's.

"Fuck is right," Sam says, pushing his own hair back haphazardly with one hand. "I want you so bad, Kurt."

"Me too," Kurt says, immediately, because he wants Sam all over him right now. Preferably, he wants Sam all over him forever. 

Which he's still not going to think about.

"We're like, an hour from your house or something, right?"

"Or something," Kurt agrees.

"And everyone will be gone?"

"They should be," Kurt says. He's still trying to pull himself back together.

"Good," Sam says. "Let's get there as soon as we possibly can, because Kurt, I need all of your clothes to be off and that's just a little bit awkward when we're about forty feet away from a McDonald's PlayPlace."

"Just a bit," Kurt says, wryly, finally sliding off of Sam's lap. "Okay. Let's do this." He leans in to kiss Sam once more, then pulls out his phone to text Rachel, _I don't care what your plans for the day were but keep my brother out of my house for as long as humanely possible. Sam and I will be arriving in less than two hours and I need the privacy_.

He figures she'll be okay with it. She seems to be very invested in him and Sam making it. She's been asking him about how he and Sam are doing basically every day since that awful time in November when they didn't really talk.

And he's right. _OK_ , Rachel responds, so Kurt kisses Sam once more – lingering, chaste – before climbing back into the driver's seat and just breathing deeply for a few minutes, willing himself to calm down, for his half-erection to soften enough to focus on the road.

Sam, who has apparently more common sense and less of a predilection for climbing over shit, leaves the backseat through the nearest door and comes back in the front. Once seated, he lets his head loll to the side so he can grin at Kurt. "I love you," he says. "I just – I wanted you to know."

Kurt wants to be able to give something back to Sam in response to that, but he doesn't want to lie, and he's just not ready to say he loves him yet. Instead, he reaches over and takes Sam's hand again as he starts the car and begins driving out of the parking lot. "I'm – I think," he says, swallowing around his suddenly dry mouth. He pauses, checks in with himself – what exactly does he think? What is he willing to promise Sam? What is he willing to promise _himself_ , to commit to?

Sam squeezes his fingers, briefly, as Kurt takes the turn onto the on-ramp. Kurt blinks, clears his throat. "I think – I'm getting there," he says, glancing at Sam quickly, even though he's about to merge onto the freeway. Sam is smiling.

Kurt smiles, too.

They're less than half an hour away from Lima when Kurt's phone buzzes with a text. "Read it to me?" he asks Sam.

"Yeah," Sam says, thumbing through for a second. "Um, Rachel says, 'Finn wants to see Sam when he gets back. What should I tell him?'"

"Crap," Kurt says, drumming his fingers on the wheel. "What do we tell Finn? I knew he'd want to see you but I didn't think it would compare to whatever Rachel might be offering him that I do _not_ want to think about now."

"So I'm worth less than a lay?" Sam asks, but Kurt can see that he's grinning so like, good. "Kidding. Um, I'm okay with telling Finn the truth if you are."

Kurt's heart like basically literally _flutters_ , it feels like. "I am," he says. "But I'd prefer it to be at least closer to the end of your stay because if we tell him now it will get back to Dad and Carole before they even get back from their bed and breakfast, somehow, and then we'll be under constant supervision your entire time here and if we're being entirely honest, I really don't want to not be able to sneak you into my room for blowjobs every night or whatever."

"Fair point," Sam says, chuckling. He glances at the phone. "I'll just tell her to let him know we're stopping for dinner on the way and that we'll get in, oh, around ten instead of like 5:30 so he doesn't need to get back home till then. Because I'd love to see him again but god, Kurt, I need to see you naked first."

Kurt's dick twitches at the thought and yeah, he really needs to be in Lima right fucking _now_ because he's pretty sure that driving while that kind of talk is going on is pretty much another way of driving while impaired.

So maybe he starts pushing 85. So what? The roads are relatively clear of people, considering it's two days after Christmas, and it's not like he's not a good driver.

They make it to Lima in no time, after that, and then it's just a matter of navigating the streets to his house. He makes sure to park in the garage, so Finn won't automatically see his car, and then he clambers out of the car. 

"I think we can leave your stuff in here for now," he tells Sam seriously, as Sam starts to walk around to the back of Kurt's Nav to get his bags. "I think there are probably more important things to attend to."

"True," Sam says, and when Kurt looks at him, Sam is staring directly at Kurt's crotch.

Well.

Okay, then.

Kurt takes three steps forward and grabs Sam's hand, tugging him to the door that leads from the garage to the house proper. He fumbles his keys when he gets there, though, and almost drops them, which means he has to go through and pick out the garage door key all over again.

He doesn't want to prolong the time between now and kissing Sam, though, so he smiles a wicked smile at Sam and pushes him gently against the door, moving in to kiss him hard, feeling the keys with the fingers of one hand and pushing the other up Sam's shirt, skimming just over his hip all the while. When he thinks he's feeling the right key, he shoves it into the lock. It fits, so he turns it, and it must be right because he can hear the lock sliding in the door and clicking open. 

"Bed?" he suggests, and Sam nods fervently, so they stumble inside and on to Kurt's room, shedding coats and hats and scarves and gloves on the way. Kurt wants to stop every three feet to kiss Sam silly, and he's pretty sure that Sam wants the same thing, given the looks that he's receiving, but they manage to make it all the way to Kurt's room without giving in. Which is probably a good thing, really, because like – bed, and if they'd stopped to kiss against one more wall, Kurt isn't entirely certain that they'd make it all the way to his room at all.

He's pretty sure Finn isn't going to come home before Rachel lets him out of her clutches, but just to be safe, he turns the lock on his door before taking a deep breath and turning to face Sam.

Sam is smiling crookedly at him. His hair is a disheveled mess already from when he was running his hands through it earlier, which makes Kurt just want to mess it up even more. 

"Come here," he says, nodding his head at Kurt, so Kurt takes a step forward, and then another, and then a third, and then Sam is wrapping his arms around Kurt in a big bear hug. Their height difference is about three inches, maybe two, but Sam still tries to hunch over Kurt the way that Finn does when he gives his really massive hugs – and _wow, Kurt, now is not the time to be thinking about your brother_ , Kurt tell himself, as he hugs Sam back, clinging to him for a minute before nudging Sam's face back with his own face, moving in to kiss him, softer than he's done all day. Sam kisses him back, and Kurt just – he _luxuriates_ in being completely surrounded by Sam, physically and emotionally, Sam's arms wrapping around his body, Sam's lips wrapping around his lips, and –

Well.

Kurt's hard, his dick straining against the zipper of his pants, so he pulls back a little and makes his way to the bed. He stands there for a moment, staring at Sam, and then reaches up and starts unbuttoning his own shirt slowly, shrugging it off when it's undone, unbuckling his belt and flicking the button at the top of his pants open. Sam strides forward, pulling his shirt over his head as he does so. Unlike Kurt, Sam isn't wearing an undershirt. He sits on the edge of the bed, also undoing the top of his jeans - belt, button, zip - before reaching forward and pushing Kurt's undershirt up until Kurt rolls his eyes and takes it off, too. 

Sam stretches out, lying back on the bed, pressing a hand against his cock – Kurt's twitches a bit at the sight of a half-naked Sam, disheveled and splayed out. He climbs up next to Sam and stretches out on his side, reaching out to run his hands along Sam's beautiful abs. 

"Kurt," Sam breathes, turning his head and kissing Kurt, gently at first and then harder, until he's pressing Kurt against the bed, lying half on top of him, his cock hard against Kurt's thigh.

"Sam," he says, pushing a hand between them, feeling Sam's length through his jeans. "You should be more naked."

"You too," Sam says, and god, he's smiling that Sam-smile that Kurt loves so well, so Kurt has to kiss him again, trying to wriggle out of his pants and boxer-briefs at the same time.

Eventually, they end up naked. Kurt takes advantage of that to stare at Sam – he hasn't seen Sam like this in _months_ , and never sober, and –

Wait.

They've never done this sober.

Kurt's heart pounds in his chest. What if he's fallen out of habit and doesn’t know what to do, especially since they don't have weed or booze as the buffer? What if he's bad, and he doesn't live up to Sam's memories or expectations? What if he just completely gives Sam the worst sex he's ever had in his life?

"What is it?" Sam asks, and huh. Kurt's thoughts must be showing on his face or something.

He grimaces at Sam. "We've never done this sober before," he says, quietly.

Sam reaches forward, tangles his fingers with Kurt's. "I know," he says, just as quietly. "I'm so – I'm so happy we're taking this step." He pauses, studying Kurt for a moment. "Are you – it's okay that we're doing this, right?"

"Yeah, of course," Kurt says, as much for his own benefit as it is for Sam's. "Just – what if I'm not—"

"I'm going to stop you right there," Sam says, bringing their joined hands up to his mouth and pressing a kiss in the center of the back of Kurt's hand, then sucking one of Kurt's fingers into his mouth and swirling around it with his tongue before letting it go with a soft _pop_. "Because whatever you could do would be great, Kurt." He smiles, bashfully. "I don't think you understand how hung up on you I am."

"I'm getting some idea," Kurt says, breathing shakily, because like – yeah. He's feeling a little reassured, but also a little daunted by how much _faith_ in him Sam is showing. Kurt doesn't feel anywhere near that much faith in himself.

In Sam, though? Kurt thinks maybe he's beginning to feel that level of faith in Sam. And on some level, that means trusting Sam's opinion. 

He moves forward with a little more assurance, spreads a hand wide over Sam's hip and kisses Sam thoroughly again, feeling Sam's strong hands move to bracket his waist, thumbs moving in tiny little circles. Eventually, after a few minutes of just kissing and touching lightly, he moves his hand down and across a little, till he can feel Sam's cock. He spreads his hand over it and lets Sam thrust up against the flat of his palm before wrapping his hands around it.

"Wait," Sam says, and Kurt freezes, pulling his hand away. Sam scoots down until his hips are in line with Kurt's, and he slots their cocks together, wrapping them both loosely in one hand before nodding at Kurt. "Okay," he says, so Kurt moves his hand back. His palm is pressed against Sam's fingers, his fingers against Sam's palm. Sam grins at him, a clump of hair falling in front of his eyes, and Kurt is just so fucking _charmed_ by everything about the way Sam looks, barely biting the corner of one lip, his smile, his hair, his _hand_ against Kurt's hand, his cock against Kurt's cock. Kurt moves in to kiss him, rolling his hips forward at the same time, and god, the drag of Sam's cock and their hands against him is just... it's really great.

Better than, in fact, but his brain is kind of whiting out now, and it's all he can do to keep kissing Sam. He hears a low moan, and it takes him a full three thrusts to realize that it's coming from him, not Sam.

Sam is loosening his grip, pulling his hand away to lick it, and Kurt stutters in his rhythm before moving his hand to do the same. Their cocks slip out of alignment, and for a moment, Kurt is practically rutting against where Sam's thigh meets his body, so he takes advantage of the moment to grasp Sam's cock, twist his hand over the tip and draw Sam's precome down along with Kurt's spit-slick palm over the shaft. Sam groans loudly, then does the same for Kurt, and just – wow.

"I'm so close," Kurt gasps, and Sam grins and tries to slot their dicks back together. Kurt pauses and lends a hand, literally, and then they're moving against each other again, slicker now, and faster, and Kurt's just fucking into their hands against Sam's dick almost mindlessly now. Like, it's almost like his hips can do literally nothing but roll forward again and again and again until his balls clench and he's coming and coming and _coming_ over their joined hands and Sam's dick and Sam's stomach.

Sam curses, kissing Kurt deeper, plundering Kurt's mouth with his tongue. Kurt is about to cry out, because his dick is like, really sensitive right now, but then Sam is coming too, and he's falling back to the bed, limp.

"Wow," Sam says, eventually.

"I concur," Kurt says, lying back next to Sam. He twists his head to look at the other boy; Sam is looking straight at him, so Kurt grins and rolls over to kiss Sam softly.

"I think I might need a nap before round two," Sam says, and Kurt's stomach clenches – in a good way – because they've never really had that before and god, the thought alone is almost enough to get him ready to go. 

Sleep sounds good, though, so he kisses Sam again and makes as if to move away so they can drift off. 

"Where are you going?" Sam asks, and Kurt looks back at him. 

"Um – nap?" he says, and Sam shakes his head.

"You're not getting away from me that easily," he says, tugging Kurt next to him. "We're going to spoon. I haven't been able to hold you for like, four months."

Kurt hums. "Okay," he says, after a beat, because that does sound nice. So he rolls onto his side and Sam moves until he's pressed flush against Kurt's back and drapes a heavy arm across Kurt's waist. Kurt moves his hand over Sam's, tangling their fingers together. Words build up behind his tongue – scary words, with big promises – but he swallows them. He's not ready to say them yet.

He does want to say something, though, so – "I missed you," he mumbles, already drifting off. Sam says something in return, but Kurt mostly just feels, rather than hears, the rumble of Sam's voice.

He fades in and out of sleep. The weight of Sam's arm across his waist and the way that he will shift, and then brush a kiss across Kurt's shoulders or neck or the back of his head and then fall back, breath evening out again, keeps Kurt from nodding off completely. He's still largely unaware of the world, though, and he has some half-dreams of shadowy figures that he can't remember by the next time he jerks awake to one of Sam's feather-light kisses.

Eventually, Kurt stops drifting. He feels like he's been fading in and out of sleep for hours, but when he opens his eyes, the clock on his nightstand indicates it's been more like forty-five minutes.

His cock indicates that it's time for round two.

Sam's arm is a dead weight across him, and he's breathing evenly – asleep, then. And Kurt respects that. He really does. It's just – he's really horny, and he's still groggy from sleep, so. He just wants to wriggle closer to Sam, that's all. And if he happens to mostly just shift his ass against Sam's crotch, well. That's just a coincidence. 

Sam is half-hard, and Kurt has never been more aware of being naked. He can feel the tickle of Sam's body hair pressed up close against his skin. He can feel how Sam's dick is gradually growing harder as Kurt shifts his hips minutely back and forth against Sam – to find the most comfortable way to lie together, of course.

And then, suddenly, Sam's hips are moving forward as Kurt's are moving back. He lifts his arm – Kurt winces; their skin was somewhat stuck together and while it doesn't hurt for Sam to pull away, exactly, it does feel a little uncomfortable for a moment – and settles it down again, a little lower, hand opening, and then he's palming Kurt's cock.

"Good morning," Kurt says, voice rich with arousal, even though it's definitely evening, and Sam's chest rumbles again, this time with laughter.

"It's still night though, right?" Sam asks, and Kurt can't help but grin.

"Yeah," he says. "It's not even seven yet. We've been asleep for less than an hour. It just – feels like more. It's nice."

"Well, then. I could say the same to you," he says, and then he's brushing another one of those kisses to Kurt's shoulder. "You seem – awake."

"Yeah, well, I have a really hot guy pressed up against my back," Kurt says, even though he's still fighting to wake completely up. He's just focused, is all. Who can blame him? "That does tend to wake a guy up."

"Mmm," Sam says. He rolls his hips forward against Kurt's ass. "This is nice."

Kurt's not sure whether Sam is referring to the fact that his dick is pressed, hard, against Kurt's ass, or the fact that they just go to wake up together, which is like – weirdly romantic. Honestly, though, both of these things are nice, so he says, "Yeah."

Sam rolls his hips again, pressing his chest closer to Kurt's back, wrapping his hand around Kurt's cock. "Is this okay?" he asks.

Well, yeah. "It's great," Kurt says, because Sam's hand is on him, holding him loosely and moving slowly up and down, and like – yeah. "Is it good for you?"

"So good," Sam says, quietly, and Kurt's heart flutters.

"I can make it even better for you," he says, because like – he wants to, and before Sam can even respond, he's leaning forward and pulling his nightstand drawer open and grabbing his lube.

"Um – Kurt – we don't have to –" Sam starts, but Kurt settles back and grinds his hips against Sam's dick. Sam stops talking for the moment, but he's tense now – waiting to see what Kurt does, probably.

Kurt imagines Sam will let him know if what he does isn't appropriate, but he wants to make sure, so he says, "Tell me if you want me to stop," before pouring a little lube onto the palm of his hand. He lifts one leg up, slightly, and bends over so that he can reach between his legs and grasp Sam's cock with his lubed-up hand. He strokes the shaft twice, until it's coated, and then gently pulls it forward, between his thighs, before lowering his leg back down. Sam takes a deep breath, and Kurt can feel him physically relax against him.

"You want me to –"

" _Yes_ ," Kurt hisses, so Sam thrusts forward, his cock sliding between Kurt's legs, the head nudging gently against Kurt's balls. 

Sam moans, and reaches for Kurt's hand. Kurt is confused for a split second, but then Sam pushes it down until Kurt is brushing his own cock, and with dawning awareness, he pumps it once, wiping the last of the lube onto it, and then Sam is pushing Kurt's hand away and replacing it with his own and fisting him up and down with each thrust of his hips.

Moving like this while they're still on their sides is kind of awkward – the bed adds a certain amount of friction, and not necessarily the good kind - but it still works and it feels fucking fantastic. Sam's thrusts are growing more erratic when he inevitably pulls back too far and his cock slips from between Kurt's legs and on his next thrust, it brushes against Kurt's entrance briefly, and. 

Well.

Kurt gasps, and Sam freezes. "Are you – Kurt, did I-"

"You're fine," Kurt says, voice hoarse, deep with arousal. "That, um. That felt really good."

"Okay, good," Sam says. He kisses Kurt's neck where it meets his shoulder briefly, and then again, and again, latching on and alternating tickling circles of his tongue with tiny little nips and quick, hard sucks. Kurt tilts his neck as much as he can to allow Sam access, grinding back against Sam. Sam's cock is now fitting snugly in the cleft of Kurt's ass, pressing hotter and harder with each thrust of his hips. 

Kurt is honestly used to being on the other side of this sort of thing nine times out of ten, and despite himself, his mind flashes to the memory of fucking into Blaine, hands tight on his hips, the pure sensation of it all.

But that was then and this is now, and Sam is beautiful and sweet and lovely and _here_ , and just… the way Kurt feels when he's around him is so intoxicating and so _different_. Maybe they didn't have the most lucrative start, but now that they're both on the same page and in the same place, it's just…

It feels more mature, is the thing, and maybe that's a function of the importance of communication in their whole long-distance quasi-relationship confusion and the way they've been so much more open about talking about pretty much everything, but in any case, Kurt just feels like what they have is on a different, more mature level. Maybe it's that he never put Sam on a pedestal as some kind of gay guru – he just let Sam be his friend. His best friend.

His best friend who turns him on like nothing else and who feels so perfect with his cock, still slightly lubed from earlier, moving against his ass slick and hot and hard and Kurt just – 

He just _wants_ him.

"I want you," he tells Sam, because using his words is really important even now. Especially now. "So much."

"You have me," Sam says, so, so seriously and _so_ touchingly. 

Kurt pauses his movements. "I want to kiss you," he says. "I'm going to turn around."

"Okay," Sam says. He pulls back slightly, and Kurt misses the feeling of him lined up against his back. But then he's turning around and facing Sam and able to lean forward and finally fit his mouth over the other boy's and just – even his sleep breath doesn't taste that bad.

Sam immediately lets his mouth fall open, so Kurt strokes in with his tongue. He moves his hand to Sam's waist, pressing close as possible, just to feel the warmth of Sam's body against his own. He doesn't cant his hips against Sam's, though, because when he turned, the mood shifted from frenetic to one of savoring the moment – a little slower, a little more intense. 

After a few minutes, Kurt pulls away briefly, just to catch his breath. Sam smiles at him, reaching up to stroke his thumb along the line of Kurt's hair. "I'm so happy," he whispers, tipping his head forward until his forehead is leaning against Kurt's own.

"You can fuck me, if you want," Kurt blurts. 

Sam blinks, draws back. "I'm – what?"

Kurt blushes, because he hadn't exactly meant to bring it up. He thinks about it, though, and like… it's true. "I mean," he says. "You don't have to. If you're not ready. But it's an option. If you want it to be."

"We don't have to," Sam says, slowly. Kurt darts a glance at his face. He's bright red. "I mean… I wouldn't like, be necessarily opposed but like, just because we're together right now doesn't mean we have to…"

"Last summer," Kurt interrupts. "You said that you didn't want to because it would be really hard to like. Go. And like, it's totally fine if you don't want to do it now, like I get that, it's a huge step and… I get that. But. You don't have to worry about me going and I don't think I have to worry about you, either."

"True," Sam says, and he leans in for another long kiss. Kurt clings to him, gently, daringly rolling his hips against Sam's, groaning at the pressure. "I'm definitely not going to go, and I'm glad that you won't, either. But like – are you sure you're sure?"

Kurt considers this. His dad basically told him to make sure that he was in love, that sex was a means to connect with someone else important and like… he and Sam have certainly done a lot already, most of it under the influence of various things, and yeah, maybe he isn't in love with Sam right now, or maybe he is but he isn't ready to admit it, or. Something. But like, sex with Sam would be what his dad wants it to be for him, no matter what the exact quality of his feelings for Sam. Kurt just, well. He just knows it would be.

"I'm sure," he tells Sam.

Sam coughs a little. "I mean," he says. "I think – I don't know. Maybe. I think I'd like to? But." He darts a glance at Kurt. "I always thought that – I mean, we've obviously never talked about this so I don't know for certain, but I got the impression that like." He pauses for a moment and then says, all in a rush, "You would be the one fucking me."

Kurt blinks. "Would you rather that?" he asks. "I mean, yeah, that's how it's um. Usually been for me in the past, if that's what you meant. But I'm not set on just like, topping or anything." It's his turn to press in to kiss Sam. "I'm okay with probably anything you want to do right now. You fucking me, me fucking you, …just blowjobs or handjobs if you don't want to do anything beyond that right now. Whatever is okay with me."

"I'm nervous," Sam confesses, moving a hand up to scrub it through his hair. 

"It _is_ a big step," Kurt allows. He kisses Sam again, slowly and for a long time, before pulling back and threading his fingers through Sam's hair, holding their faces close together. "We'll take it at whatever speed is best for us."

"Like, I want to," Sam says. "With you, I – I want that. So much."

"We don't have to-"

"Let me finish," Sam interrupts. "I want everything with you. I just. I don't want either of us to like, get hurt."

A shadow crosses his face, and Kurt gets the impression that Sam's not talking about not enough preparation. "Sam," Kurt says. "I'm here now. Maybe I wasn't earlier, but now? I'm here with you one hundred percent of the way and like… nothing's going to change that anytime soon."

Sam nods. He's quiet for a long moment, and then he says, "Can you just kiss me? For a while? And we'll just, you know, see where it goes."

"Of course," Kurt says, and he moves back in, pressing a leg between Sam's own and kissing him steadily, deeply. 

They end up with Kurt straddling Sam's lap, hips rolling, kissing deeply. Sam has one hand spread against the base of Kurt's back, fingers strong and wide-spaced, holding Kurt tight, with the other cupping Kurt's head. Kurt's pretty sure that Sam's stroking his hair a little bit every now and again, but he can't be positive.

He has one hand down beside Sam's side to support himself, the other cupping Sam's cheek as they kiss, but he pulls back, sits up a little bit, feeling Sam's cock thick and hard below him. 

He winks at Sam. "I want you," he says. "In me."

"Kurt," Sam says, pushing himself up a little bit, frowning slightly.

"In my mouth," Kurt clarifies, and Sam's face brightens and his hips press up against Kurt, so like – that's a go, then.

"Me too," Sam says, and he tugs Kurt back down on top of him, kissing him soundly. "I also um. Had a thought." He blushes, and Kurt waits for him to clarify with what he hopes is an encouraging expression on his face. "What about if we like, do something to. Acclimate."

"Sweetie," Kurt says, and he pauses, since like – when does he call Sam sweetie? Sam's expression hasn't changed, though, so he tries it out again. "Sweetie, I have to confess – I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

"I don't think I want to, you know, anal sex," Sam says. "Not tonight." He pauses, biting his lip, so Kurt nods and smiles, supportively. "But what if like. We practiced for it. So like, when you go down on me, you, you know. Finger me. And I'll do the same with you."

And, well. That is a pretty great idea, actually, and Kurt's dick is 100% behind the notion, which it indicates by twitching. He kisses Sam again and again and again, peppering the circumference of Sam's lips with these tiny little pecks until Sam manages to catch him in a deeper kiss. "How are you so great?" Kurt murmurs into the kiss. He's not sure that Sam can hear him – it's a very quiet murmur – but Sam's hands tighten a little bit, so… maybe he does.

"I wanna go first," Sam says, when he pulls away. "I wanna make you feel so good."

"You do make me feel so good," Kurt promises, but he slides off of Sam's lap and sprawls out. Sam sits up and surveys him, seriously. 

"You're so gorgeous," Sam whispers, reverently, and then he's leaning down and Kurt purses his lips, ready for a kiss –

But Sam moves past his lips and instead kisses Kurt's ear, gently biting on Kurt's earlobe, sucking it into his mouth until Kurt gasps and cants his hips upward, trying desperately to get some kind of friction. It's no use, though; Sam isn't positioned in a way that would enable any of that. Kurt whines his protest, and Sam just pulls away from his ear and grins. 

"Be patient, Kurt," he says, so Kurt sticks his tongue out at him. Sam's grin just widens. "Maybe save that for my dick."

And like – that is the worst kind of dirty talk attempt Kurt has ever heard, and he dated a guy who thought that talking sensuously about moisturizing routines before bed every night was _sexy_ , but like – it's pretty fucking charming and it works, ultimately, because Kurt has to reach down and squeeze the base of his cock, just in case. 

"Sam," he groans, gesturing down. "I'm kind of, like, not in a very patient position here."

"Okay," Sam says, and he starts moving lower, so Kurt props himself up a little bit to watch.

Which is how he catches sight of Sam's luscious lips twisted into a wicked grin, and like – Sam isn't about to go down on him yet, obviously, so Kurt isn't surprised when Sam's mouth wraps around his left nipple, rather than his cock. And then there's suction, and tongue, and the lightest grazing of teeth, and Kurt is gasping for breath at the sensations and the sight of Sam's mouth puckered up around Kurt's small nipple before Sam lowers down further still, mouthing along Kurt's chest and stomach as he does so.

And pauses. 

"Sam," Kurt says again, and Sam places a hand on Kurt's thigh and starts making these tiny little reassuring strokes with his thumb. "I need-"

"Lube," Sam interrupts. "Where did you put it?"

"Fuck," Kurt says, because he's so turned on that he can barely remember. "Um. Is it on my nightstand?"

Sam sits up again and leans over, across Kurt's body. Kurt can feel the warmth of Sam's skin even though he's not even touching him. "Got it," he says, after what feels like an eternity, holding the little bottle up proudly as he leans down to kiss Kurt again, quickly. Kurt kisses him back, but just a little, because he wants Sam's hand and Sam's wide wet mouth and Sam's everything right now, all over him, so it's kind of hard to focus on the kiss. 

And then he hears the tell-tale _snick_ of the bottle opening, and then Sam's positioning himself between Kurt's legs. "Lift up a little," he says, so Kurt bends his knees and pushes himself up slightly with his feet so that he's presenting a little bit better, and then there's the brush of Sam's finger, the lube on it still a little cold but definitely plentiful, against his entrance.

Sam works his finger slowly into Kurt's hole, wiggling it gently back and forth until he can slip his first knuckle inside of him. Kurt gasps, bites down on his lip _hard_. It feels good, of course it does. Better even, if he remembers correctly, than Blaine's attempts at fingering him. Though he's not certain whether that's a function of skill, or of the different quality of this fledgling relationship.

It's still abundantly clear to Kurt, though, that although he was right when he said he'd love for Sam to fuck him, fucking Sam would come just a little more naturally to Kurt.

It still feels completely fantastic, though. Sam is working his finger slowly, inexorably deeper still, each minute push and pull gaining a little more push, a little less pull.

And then, suddenly, Sam's wide mouth is enveloping Kurt's cock in wet heat, and Kurt is that much closer to coming. Sam crooks his finger inside Kurt as much as he can, working it still deeper, and then pulling it out a little further, pushing it in a little quicker, and there's this tickle of arousal that is persistent and really, really good.

God, Kurt wants to come, hard. He tries not to push his hips up further into Sam's mouth, but he can't help but to rock them up a little bit. Sam hums at the press, and the hum reverberates around Kurt's cock, and, well.

It's just really fucking nice, okay?

Sam pulls his finger out almost completely, and then he's pressing in with two, this time, even more carefully than before, but he's doing this really interesting thing with his tongue at the time, too, swirling it around the head of Kurt's cock, alternating with suction, and Kurt's so close he can't help it, so he taps Sam's shoulder in warning and tries not to come but Sam just takes him deeper and then he's coming _hard_ in Sam's mouth.

Sam pulls back before Kurt's done, and a stripe of come lands across his lips, and it's just so _much_ , so Kurt pulls Sam up and kisses him, deep and long and hard, tasting his own come in Sam's mouth and licking it off his lips and hopefully Sam doesn't find that gross, because it's just the hottest thing, in Kurt's opinion.

When Kurt finally breaks the kiss, Sam seems mostly intrigued, though, so Kurt grins at him and winks and says, "My turn."

He saves mentioning that he wants Sam to come in his mouth so Sam's come can mingle with what he's gotten of his own come from Sam's lips. He'll save that revelation for another time.

Here, now, is familiar territory.

He presses Sam against the bed, running a hand up and down Sam's side, just feeling the warm, smooth skin, the faint prickle of hair. He takes a long minute to just look at Sam. His skin somehow has only the faintest remnants of his summer tan – Kurt lost any color he got in October – but it still looks great on him. His hair, which Kurt already noticed was slightly darker than during the summer, is also a little bit shorter, and so, so messy from all of the sex and sleeping they've done already tonight. 

Kurt traces a finger along Sam's bicep, and then moves it across his chest, circling one of his nipples with it gently before leaning in for yet another kiss. As he kisses Sam, he pinches one of his nipples, twisting lightly until Sam gasps into his mouth.

And then, Kurt starts kissing his way down Sam's body, pressing his stomach flat against Sam's dick, feeling Sam strain up toward the pressure as Kurt slowly drags his body lower, pressing occasional kisses on Sam's sternum, down his stomach, on his belly button – Kurt licks into this, fucking it gently with his tongue for a moment before licking down Sam's happy trail and then pausing, resting directly above Sam's cock.

"Kurt," Sam hisses, moving his hands to Kurt's head and pushing it down a fraction of an inch – then stopping. "Sorry, sorry," he says, but Kurt doesn't mind, actually, so he shakes his head to indicate that.

Sam doesn't try it again, though, so Kurt settles on his elbows and breathes over Sam's cock, softly at first, so that his breath is warm, and then hard and cool, until Sam hisses again. He lowers down further and presses a soft kiss to the side of Sam's dick, then drags his lips up the side of the shaft until he can fit them around the head, swirling his tongue around the tip of Sam's cock once it is firmly in his mouth.

"Kurt," Sam says again, so Kurt reaches out and fumbles for the lube. He can feel Sam shifting a little bit, and then suddenly Sam's rough fingers are brushing against Kurt's own, bottle of lube smooth and cool as Sam pushes it into Kurt's hand. Kurt pulls it down, still gently mouthing around Sam's cock, not yet blowing him in earnest, as he opens the lube and squirts some onto his fingers. He pushes it around, a little awkwardly, until his fingers are coated, and then pushes his own body up slightly so that he can move his hand into place. 

Kurt circles Sam's entrance lightly with his fingers until Sam moves his hips, grinding down against Kurt's ministrations. He works a finger carefully into Sam – he's used to moving faster, but it's Sam's first time being entered, probably, and he wants it to feel good. He still moves with purpose, steadily and not necessarily very slowly, working his finger in and licking fat stripes up the underside of Sam's cock, or sucking the head gently into his mouth whenever Sam tenses up.

It's a remarkably good way to relax him.

Once his index finger is pressed in past the second knuckle, Kurt twists it from side to side, thrusting shallowly before drawing it slowly out again and pushing two fingers in, feeling Sam stretch around them. Once they're in past the first knuckle, Kurt focuses on Sam's cock.

He's still working his fingers in, steadily and a little quicker now, twisting them and thrusting them minutely as Sam opens up around them. He also takes Sam deeper into his mouth, getting used to the weight of cock on his tongue again, trying to remember how to relax his throat in just the right way to be able to swallow around it. He doesn’t quite have the hang of it again, but he can tell by Sam's gasps and groans that it still feels pretty damn good.

Sam's hips jerk, so Kurt grips the base of his dick with his free hand, pumping it slowly up and down the shaft to cover what he can't quite take into his mouth, working just the tip of a third finger into Sam, crooking the two that are firmly inside of him in little beckoning motions, trying to find the right angle, until Sam shouts and taps Kurt's arm wildly. 

Kurt works to loosen his throat, ready to take Sam's load completely, and just in time. Sam shoots off thick and hot down Kurt's throat. Inspired by the other boy, Kurt starts pulling off of Sam's cock while he is still coming – he's perfectly capable of swallowing everything Sam has to offer, that skill hasn't gone away, but he also kind of likes the idea of getting at least a little bit of a facial. It's not something that he's ever considered before – it's not even something that he wants to examine closely right now. He's operating purely off of urge right now, a weird, amorphous desire that he's pretty sure he can't completely articulate yet. The closest he can come is just that fleeting thought of Sam's jizz coating his lips.

He only gets a dribble of come on the corner of his mouth, but it's enough for now. He crawls up Sam's body and, when Sam is looking at him, deliberately licks his lips before kissing him deeply, trying his damndest and almost succeeding at not like, completely feeding Sam his own come during the kiss, another foreign urge that he doesn't want to think about too closely, yet.

And then there's this strange feeling, entirely different from the urge he was just experiencing, welling inside of him that's not really exactly a post-coital glow, even though it's warm and fond like one. Kurt feels a little closer to being able to name it, but he's still not quite ready yet.

Instead of blurting what's not quite on the tip of his tongue yet – it's more like it's tickling the back of his throat – Kurt clears his throat and says, "Shower first, cuddle later?"

Sam wraps his arms around Kurt in response and kisses him, deeply. "Only if we can shower together."

+++

"We need to tell Mercedes," Sam says, abruptly. They're back in bed – they have a little over an hour before Finn is supposed to get home. There's a frozen pizza in the oven – Sam actually suggested it, pointing out that although he wouldn't normally eat one, it requires basically zero preparation and doesn't involve any splattering, and thus gives them more time to be naked in bed together. Which, well. They are. At least for the twelve minutes, roughly, before the pizza finishes cooking

"Was she your first love?" Kurt asks, running a finger around and around in tiny circles on Sam's hip.

His eyes drop to Sam's lips as Sam speaks, watching the way that they form letters. He has to focus – his mind keeps slipping to memories of Sam's lips making those same shapes across his chest earlier.

"I mean," Sam is saying. "I really liked Quinn a lot. Like, I loved her, but I wasn't in love with her. You know?"

Kurt hasn't really ever had that experience, so – not really, but he can imagine it. "Yeah," he says.

"Yeah," Sam says. "And I've liked other people – Santana, this guy Dylan at the boarding school I was at back when we lived in Tennessee, and – but no, yeah, Mercedes was different."

Kurt stops doodling over Sam's hip with his finger, cups his hand and smooths it over Sam's side. Sam glances down at Kurt's hand, then back up at his face. "No, it's okay," he says. "I've obviously moved on, and – yeah, like I guess she was my first real love, and I wouldn't trade that for anything – um, no offense – but like, she was also…"

He breaks off, frowning slightly. Kurt waits for him to collect his thoughts. "When I got back in town, and she was suddenly with Shane – let's just say I needed to learn that love also means respecting the person when they, you know, change their minds, and um. Even when it means respecting them choosing to be with someone else." He pauses again. "I think that's why Samcedes 2.0 didn't work. I hadn't – I wasn't there yet." He chuckles ruefully. "That's more than you asked to know."

"No, it's fine," Kurt says, and – it really is. He wonders if he'd feel more jealous, what with Sam talking about this person he loved quite a bit, and who had such an obviously important role in his life, or if he'd be back to wondering if Sam wouldn't be better off with a girl again, if it weren't Mercedes they were talking about.

But it is, and she's Kurt's oldest friend, and very dear to him. So he's not. If anything, he almost feels sorry that it didn’t work out between them (and maybe that's the respect thing Sam's talking about, part of Kurt's brain supplies, but he quenches that thought because like – thinking about a love like that is scary intense, however accurate it might feel, deep down). "Sam," he says, slowly, and his thoughts must be evident on his face, because Sam reaches out, places a finger against Kurt's lips. 

"Don't even," he says, seriously. "I'm glad it happened. I mean, it sucked at the time, but she's happy, and – Kurt, I started, um, noticing you after the whole prom debacle, and now we're - _this_ , and I'm so – I just – I'm so happy."

"Sam," Kurt says again, so quietly it's barely even a whisper, and then Sam's moving forward and so is Kurt and they're kissing again.

They pull apart when the timer on the oven beeps. Kurt quickly pulls on his boxer-briefs and a set of pajamas – sweatpants and t-shirt, not his slumber party loungewear – while Sam tugs on the same, sans boxers. 

When they get the pizza out of the oven, the cheese is a little dark but it's still good, and Kurt sets about slicing it while Sam, who still remembers all the ins and outs of the Hudson-Hummel kitchen, gets plates, pours glasses of water, and rummages through the fridge for some kind of vegetable accompaniment. 

Kurt carries the pizza out to the dining room, because why not? Sam follows with the bag of baby carrots he scrounged, and after they go back for the plates and water, Kurt sits in his usual chair.

Sam sits in Finn's chair, and drags it even closer to Kurt's, so that, if he wants to, he can reach out and take Kurt's hand while they're eating.

"So how do you want to do this?" Kurt asks, when they've each finished one slice and have second slices on their plates. He crunches a carrot, just like… totally relishing being with Sam right now.

"How do you feel about both of us going to talk to her?" Sam asks, looking uncertain, and suddenly Kurt is reminded of the fact that like, even though he's so sure about this thing he has with Sam, even though he gets the impression that the maturity level of this relationship is so vastly different from that of his relationship with Blaine, it's still very new and Sam doesn't know everything about him.

Which means he doesn't know everything about Sam, which. Well. He _did_ know that, honestly, but it's important to be reminded. Sex is certainly one way to get to know each other, and they've definitely done a lot of talking since the whole Halloween debacle, and they've _lived together_ , for goodness sake, but it's still… it's not everything, and they've only officially been boyfriend and boyfriend for like, less than twelve hours.

"I think that's a good idea," Kurt says, blowing on his next slice of pizza – it's still really hot – before biting into it. He chews, swallows. "Should we do it here, do you think? Or her place? Or somewhere else?"

"Not her home," Sam says, immediately. "Or any of her favorite places."

Kurt looks at Sam for a long moment, studying him, before realization hits. "Do you really think – I mean, how badly do you think she'll take it?" And there's another thing he doesn't want to think about: how there was a time that he would know the answer. It makes sense that Sam would know it better now, though. They certainly dated for long enough.

"I just don't want to ruin any of her places, you know?" Sam says. "I mean, I don't know, maybe she'll be fine with it, but dude, you were like, best friends for so long and I was her boyfriend and I'm pretty sure that's a big no-no."

Kurt winces. When Sam puts it in those terms, he – 

Well.

He wouldn't do this thing with Sam any other way, but he does honestly feel bad for Mercedes.

"Let's just have her come over here, then," he says, finally. "If she wants to avoid either of us after that, then it certainly makes it easy on her."

Sam bites his lip, and Kurt's gaze follows Sam's teeth as they worry at it for a moment. "Sounds good," he says, after a beat. "It's your house, so – you invite her over?"

"Okay," Kurt says, and he leans over to get his phone, which is on the far side of the table, where he dropped it when they finally emerged from his room to eat. _Hey girl, can you come over for lunch tomorrow? There's something I kind of want to talk about_ , he sends.

Her reply is almost instantaneous : _of course boo! we havent had a proper catching-up yet this break!!_

And like, he feels bad, but when he tells Sam they're set for tomorrow, Sam smiles at him, his smile slowly widening until his whole face is invested in it, in this special smile that is directed just at Kurt, and like – well. Maybe he's the lowest of low for doing this to one of his best girls, but Sam's smile makes it seem like ultimately, it's okay.

+++

They're midway through clean-up after dinner when Finn and Rachel show up. While Finn and Sam are hugging it out – Kurt has to take a moment to just watch them, because like, it's his brother with his _boyfriend_ and sure, they've been friends for years, now, but it's still heartwarming in an entirely new way now – Rachel tugs Kurt aside.

"How was it?" she whispers. "Was the homecoming everything you hoped for and more?"

"Yes," Kurt tells her. He can't keep a satisfied smile off his face, which Rachel obviously notices, because she starts to squeal, suppresses it decently well, and gives him a tight side-hug. Kurt hugs her back. "You are a goddess amongst women, Rachel Berry," he says, quietly. "Don't let anyone ever tell you differently."

"I know," she says, smugly. "I've been a driving force behind yours and Sam's quasi-relationship for months now. Maybe I should market my skills."

"I'd be the first to recommend them," he says, and because he's so completely happy, he presses a kiss to her cheek. "Thank you for keeping Finn occupied."

Her face darkens slightly, but it passes quickly – though not quickly enough for Kurt to ignore it. He makes a mental note to question her further when Finn and Sam aren't busy giving each other noogies _just_ this side of too close to the dining room table. "Anything for Hevans," Rachel says, brightly. At Kurt's questioning look, she adds, " _Which_ I've decided is your celebrity portmanteau for when you're a famous Broadway star, since Kum sounds so coarse and vulgar."

"O…kay," Kurt says, but he drapes an arm around her and tugs her close. He's gotten a lot more comfortable with being physical around Rachel in the past few months, and she's just – well. If someone had told him two years ago that Rachel would be one of the three most important people in his life, he would have laughed them off. 

Sam is pulling up his sleeve and flexing for Finn, showing off his biceps, and Kurt's mouth goes suddenly dry, at the sight and at the memory of those arms, wrapping around him and moving down the line of his body and twisting up as Sam fingered him earlier. He clears his throat and focuses on Rachel. "Just imagine," he says. "Wouldn't it be great if somehow Sam and Finn could come up for spring break? Brittany could come too, we could make a whole week of it."

Rachel frowns at him. "You realize Santana and Brittany broke up last summer," she says, and, well, Kurt was aware that they had some kind of arrangement, because Santana had hooked up with a couple of girls at parties and bars when they went out together in New York, but she and Brittany were draped all over each other the few times they'd hung out on break, too, and Santana had talked about missing Britt with him a couple of times in November, so he'd just kind of assumed that there were still somewhat together. He points that out to Rachel, and she shrugs, a little weirdly. "Maybe it's a location thing, but when Santana and I were speaking about it a month or two ago, I got the impression that they're not in any kind of situation where Brittany would fly out from LA to be with her for a week. I think she's met someone else."

"Oh," Kurt says, and he's silent for a moment, watching Sam and Finn. They've moved on to the couch, which he can just see through the open doorway, and are loading up some video game or another. "Well, she can bring someone else, then. Quinn can come down from Yale or something."

"Yeah," Rachel says, blinking once or twice, and Kurt seriously needs to sit down and have a long conversation with her, because she's not usually this abrupt or cagey about things. "Shall we follow our boys?" And she flashes another bright smile at Kurt, hip-checks him before moving out of his grasp and heading into the living room. Kurt trails after her. 

Sam and Finn are sitting on opposite ends of the couch, controllers at the ready as their game loads, so he sits on the inside of Sam and Rachel sits between him and Finn, giving him just the barrier he needs to slip a hand onto Sam's thigh. Sam glances at him and smiles so brilliantly that Kurt's heart flutters and he promptly forgets about most of Rachel's strange body language and circumspect speech. He leans into Sam, who hooks his foot around Kurt's leg as he selects his character on the screen. 

Even though he's exhausted from all the driving and sex and excitement from seeing Sam after months apart, Kurt manages to stay awake until Finn heads up to bed so that he can sneak Sam into his room. He sets his alarm for relatively early, knowing that Finn will probably sleep till noon, and then goes to collect Sam, who is unpacking in his old room.

"Stay with me tonight," he says, quietly. 

Sam turns around to face him, eyes wide. "Really?"

"Yeah," Kurt says. He takes a deep breath, then adds, "I want to um. Wake up with you." It's not what he meant to say – he meant to say something about wanting to hold Sam, to keep Sam close, to be able to physically feel that Sam is with him instead of just knowing conceptually that Sam is here, both in Kurt's house and in their relationship, but Sam is moving forward to kiss him, so he figures that he got the point across in any case.

+++

Mercedes arrives a little before lunchtime, carrying a large grocery sack. "Mom sent me with a lot of leftovers," she explains, setting the bag down just inside the door to hug Kurt hard, and then Sam, just a beat too long.

Kurt swallows around the lump in his throat. He makes sure to look at Sam for a long moment, because the closer they get to telling her, the more guilt Kurt feels.

He's been dating Sam for less than a day. Sure, they have months of hooking up and abortive conversations about what's going on between the two of them; sure, they have a lot of, um. _Emotion_ backing them up now, but in the harsh light of day, all Kurt can think of is the fact that Mercedes has been his girl since seventh grade, and now he's completely betraying her.

When they've fixed up their plates and sat down, Sam finds Kurt's hand under the table and squeezes it. Kurt glances over at him – his eyes are wide, his mouth a little slack, and Kurt's mind flashes to the times Sam's face has been like that when Kurt first touches his dick, before he starts to move his hand before registering that Sam looks completely freaked out.

He squeezes back, takes a deep breath, and starts listening to what Mercedes is saying about being in LA, the apartment she and Britt are sharing, the crazy things that Lord Tubbington actually does get into.

They're about halfway done when she takes a visibly deep breath, looks straight at Kurt, and says, "So are you going to tell me what you wanted to talk about or is that something that can't happen with Sam around?"

"I love how up-front you are," Kurt says, distantly, because he _does_ , and he missed it terribly, and oh god, they're going to hurt her so much and he doesn't want to do that at all. "Um. It's –"

He glances at Sam. Sam smiles at him, reassuringly, but Kurt's mind is completely blank and he's going to fuck up this confession and shouldn't Sam be the one doing it, since he's the one who like… is probably going to be coming out to Mercedes simultaneously?

Where should he even start?

He takes a deep breath, intent on telling her everything, but somehow, what comes out is, "Remember when you texted me last summer?"

Mercedes gives him a dirty look. "Kurt, I've texted you a lot of times, both last summer and since then." He must still look hesitant, because she says, "Look, just tell me whatever it is."

"Remember the time that we people-watched at the mall after the God Squad meeting where Joe first showed up?" Sam interrupts. Thank god. 

"Yes," she says, slowly. "You mean the time that we-"

"Pointed cute guys out to each other, yeah."

Mercedes gives Sam a long, thoughtful look. And then: "You told him! Oh, good, we can talk about it now," she says, leaning forward. "Kurt, are you helping him with the whole coming out thing? Is this-" She gestures around the table, indicating the three of them- "so we can plan what he says to his parents and everyone else?"

"Um," Kurt says, glancing at Sam, because he doesn't know any of this backstory. 

His hesitation is enough to spoil everything. Mercedes loses her smile slowly, and she sits back in her chair. "You did know, didn't you?"

"Yes," Kurt says, clearing his throat because it's suddenly dry.

"But there's something else."

"Mercedes," Sam says, and since he and Kurt both have hands on the table, he reaches over and takes Kurt's in his own. "What we're trying to say is – we thought you should know first, because-"

God, the shit is really going to hit the fan if Mercedes finds out that Rachel and Santana also know.

"You're dating," she says, flatly. "How long?"

"A day," Kurt says, at the same time that Sam says, "Since last summer."

"Officially a day," Kurt clarifies. "There's been stuff going on for a while though."

Mercedes is quiet for a while. Kurt doesn't try to prod her; she obviously needs time to process.

Eventually, though, she looks straight at both of them. "Thanks for letting me know, I guess," she says. "I'm going to go home now."

"Are you mad?" Sam asks. He's still holding onto Kurt's hand. Kurt notices because Sam's grip tightens noticeably.

"I'm happy for you," Mercedes says. "I just need a little time to think about it."

"Of course," Kurt says, relieved, and he gets up to hug her. Her goodbye hug isn't nearly as tight or as long as her hello hug.

They watch her from the window as she reverses out the driveway and heads home, before Kurt rounds on Sam. "She knew you were bi?"

"Yeah, Joe said something dumb around Valentine's day last year, about not knowing any gay people," Sam says, shrugging. "And like, I'm not, technically, because I like girls, but I obviously like dudes, too." He winks at Kurt, then leans over for the quickest of kisses. "She and I had a long talk about it all after that. She was really great about it."

"She's a really great person," Kurt says. "I'm worried that she's going to be hurting for a while."

"Mercedes will be fine," Sam says, turning to face Kurt fully, tugging him into an embrace, arms low around Kurt's waist as he leans in, draping his chin over Kurt's shoulder. Kurt takes a deep breath, sighs, and then nudges Sam's face up. He stares at him for a long moment – or, more accurately, he stares at his lips – and then kisses him, soft and slow, trying to let his worries go for now, trying to just enjoy the moment.

Eventually, he pulls away. "Let's watch really shitty reality tv until my parents get home," he suggests. "We can cuddle."

Sam nods once, but then pauses. "When are they supposed to get back?"

Kurt glances at the time on his phone. "A couple of hours or so."

"Finn went to do something with Puck," Sam says. "He told me while you were in the shower this morning." He grins at Kurt. "Maybe we should do something else before we watch tv."

"I like the way you think," Kurt says, kissing Sam again, backing him up against the wall by the front door and tugging his shirt loose as he deepens the kiss.

+++

Over the next few days, a steady stream of people come to visit Sam. Tina extends an invitation to the New Year's party Mike has just managed to organize – his parents are going to Santana's house for some kind of adult party thing, and he only just managed to convince them to let him do something for his friends.

When she's on her way out the door, Tina pauses and looks straight at Sam. "Since Mike's parents never go down into their unfinished basement, Puck's bringing a little something," she says, sort of quietly, darting a glance at Kurt. 

Sam grins at Kurt as Tina slips out of the door. "We're together," he points out, and oh right, their promise to only smoke with each other still stands.

Kurt's still stuck on something else, though. " _Tina_?" he asks, incredulously.

"She's so much fun when she's high," Sam says, glibly, and Kurt elbows him before registering that Carole's car isn't in the driveway and that he can't hear his dad or Finn, and kisses him instead.

They steal as many moments as they can. 

They're nowhere near subtle, and Kurt is honestly surprised that no one has confronted them yet. They kiss in the kitchen when everyone has gone to bed, just like during the summer, but they also kiss in the hallway when they can't hear anyone nearby, and in the bathroom after brushing their teeth, all pasty and minty-fresh. 

For two days, they manage to evade being caught in the act – apart from Rachel, who walks in on them kissing deep and long when she's on her way out the door and they're still in the garage after picking up groceries for Carole, but she just squeals a little and hugs them spontaneously and, well. Kurt just really, really loves Rachel. They don't get caught, even though Sam jerks Kurt off under a blanket on the couch one night when they're watching a movie while everyone else is in bed, even though Kurt goes down on Sam in the laundry room while everyone else is upstairs watching a Buckeyes game, even though they sneak into the same room every night long enough to kiss and kiss and kiss and maybe finger each other a little, becoming more used to the idea of sex.

It's risky, but it's Sam, so Kurt rationalizes it away. He has a week with Sam, and then nothing for months to come. He can keep quiet for a few days.

Throughout all of this, Kurt keeps feeling words bubbling up at the back of his tongue. He's still not ready to say them, but they're an inevitability, when it comes down to it, and they feel more and more appropriate every day.

_Maybe by Valentine's day_ , he thinks. _That might be nice._

On the 30th, Finn sits down on the couch next to Kurt after their parents have gone to bed. Sam is in the kitchen, grabbing some fruit for them to split, while Kurt queues up a video game. He thinks nothing of Finn joining them, at first, but then, as soon as Sam comes back and sits down on Kurt's other side, just a shade too close, so that their legs are pressed together, Finn clears his throat.

"So how long have you two been doing it?" he asks. 

Kurt drops his controller. "Um, what?"

"You touch all the time, dude," Finn says, reaching over and taking the controller before Kurt can retrieve it. "And you do everything together. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but like – it's new." He pauses. "Also you said you were going to get dinner on your way in from Cincinnati but when I got home, there was totally dinner stuff in the kitchen, and there's only one reason I can think of that you would do that."

Sam's giving Kurt a look that he can't quite read – there's a question in there, somewhere, and a touch of concern, but Kurt can't add it all up yet, so he kind of shrugs, and Sam moves his hand over and places it deliberately on Kurt's leg. "So, I'm into guys as well as girls," he tells Finn, and oh god, Sam's coming out. Kurt moves his hand over Sam's and squeezes, gently. Sam shoots him a grin in response. 

"Yeah, I kinda guessed that when you started cuddling on the couch when you thought I wasn't looking," Finn says, dryly, and Kurt winces a little.

"Promise you won't tell Dad and Carole," he says. "Not right away."

Finn gives him a long, measured look. "I get you," he finally says, winking. "Don’t worry, I'll totally cover for you-"

" _Thank_ you," Kurt says, with no small amount of relief.

"-As long as you answer my question."

Oh. Well. "We haven't actually-"

"I mean, kind of," Sam interrupts. "Just not – that. But everything else-"

"Dudes," Finn says, quickly. "I didn't mean like, the gory details. I don't wanna hear about that. No offense," he adds, after a beat where Kurt can actually see the _oh, shit_ cross Finn's face – which, honestly, is touching, because misguided though his semi-apology is, it's a lot more than he would have gotten back when they first became brothers. "But like, you're my bros. I don't need to hear about – you know."

"So you're actually asking how long we've been an item?" Kurt asks, and when Finn nods, he turns to Sam for the answer, because like, it's complicated to explain.

"We started hooking up last summer," Sam says, and he's opened his mouth to say more when Finn snaps his fingers.

"That camping trip!" he says. "No wonder you guys scheduled it when you knew I was busy."

"Yeah," Sam says. "We basically just smoked up and hooked up."

It sounds so course and vulgar when Sam puts it that way, but it's also entirely accurate. "We've only been officially dating since Thursday, though," Kurt adds, threading his fingers in with Sam's. 

"Cool," Finn says, shrugging. He reaches over and snags a piece of the orange Sam has just peeled and eats it before adding, "Sam, if you hurt my stepbrother, I'm going to have to hurt you." Kurt bites his lip at this. He probably shouldn't be finding it endearingly sweet, but he does.

"Kurt," Finn adds, after Sam says something or another about agreeing. "If you hurt my good friend Sam, I'm going to have to throw my red boxers in with a load of your whites or something. I can't actually hurt you, specifically, because I think Mom and Burt would get really pissed, but I'd think about it. So."

"Understood," Kurt says, faintly – mostly because, well. _That_ is the punishment Finn thinks of first? It's also weirdly touching, though, this show of support, so he has to give Finn credit for that.

"Don't worry, dude," Sam says. "I'm in this for the long haul."

And yeah, Kurt had kind of gotten that impression before, but there's something about Sam saying it out loud to more than just the two of them, and basically what it comes down to is the fact that Kurt just absolutely has to kiss Sam – quick and light, because Finn _is_ right there on the couch next to them.

The words are so, so close. He's just not quite ready to commit to them. And maybe he's a jerk for it, because Sam is here, basically laying everything out on the line, and Kurt is still struggling to figure out how, precisely, he feels about Sam.

Kurt knows that he really likes Sam. He knows that this relationship is good for him, and them. He knows that it's probably going to end up being a lot healthier than his relationship with Blaine, if he gives it the chance it deserves; he's already gotten some strong indications about that. 

He just doesn't know how much he's willing to commit to, not yet. And yeah, he's going back and forth on where he is with this, but like – he just wants to be sure. He doesn't want to make Sam any promises that he can't keep.

He distracts himself with another quick kiss, Finn's presence be damned.

+++

The party is just a small affair, really, but it's the first time the whole gang is going to be together again in one place since Santana's party at the end of last summer. Rachel comes over to get ready with Kurt, who is getting the distinct impression that, although she's really come into her own and gotten comfortable in her own skin at NYADA, able to work the system there in a truly impressive manner (Kurt flashes back to all of the parties with Tisch students that Rachel's gotten them into, that she's been relatively _popular_ at, and yeah, he'd never have expected it in high school but once she's in her element, she is truly in her element), she's still uncomfortable in Lima. Which is understandable, given all her history there, but honestly, Kurt feels like it's dumb. She's already proven herself to everyone who used to be a part of New Directions.

She's still a goddess on earth who has made it very clear that she supports his thing with Sam in so very many ways, though, so he hugs her when she comes up and fixes her makeup because she's been applying it like she's preparing for an activity Professor Abelard's makeup unit in Costume Construction and not a party. It's not like he can do it any better than she could, but hopefully between the both of them, they can come up with a great look.

"Your game face is particularly fierce tonight," he murmurs, as he adjusts her eyeliner more or less well and hands her a washcloth so he can tone her lip color down a little.

Rachel is silent for a long moment. "We'll talk later," she says, finally. "After break." 

So – yeah. Something's going on with her. Kurt pulls her in for a quick hug, then pats her on the knee as they separate. "You look beautiful," he assures her. "Put on your lipgloss and let's go party." 

By the time they get to the living room, Finn has returned from his quest for snacks – boxes of bagel bites and a veggie tray, in anticipation of the munchies they'll (hopefully) be getting later that night. Sam is deep in conversation with Carole about something or another – Kurt hears the words _hospital_ and _training_ , so it's probably something to do with school – but he thanks her and pulls away when he sees Kurt and Rachel.

Mike's house is technically within walking distance, but it's dark out, and it's gotten considerably colder since Cincinnati, so they take Kurt's car. He gives Rachel his keys, because she refuses to drive anything that large and he knows she'll hold onto them like crazy if he's not good to drive home, and tugs Sam into the shadow by the front of the car, out of sight of most angles from the house, for one lingering, fortifying kiss before he makes his way to the door.

They've just tossed their coats on the guest room bed and are halfway down the hall to the kitchen to get drinks when it happens. Kurt can hear Mike talking to someone at the door, but he's not really paying attention to what he's saying until he hears a very familiar, very _shocked_ voice say, "Kurt."

Kurt doesn't know why he's so surprised, and he certainly doesn't know why Blaine is surprised. They run in the same circles, after all. He just – he hasn't seen him, honestly, outside of very brief moments out and about, because Lima is a relatively small town and sometimes running into someone you don't want to see just can't be avoided. Blaine hadn't been at Santana's end-of-summer party – Kurt had just assumed that he was with Sebastian and been so hyperfocused on Sam he managed not to think about it very much – so Kurt just. Didn't expect to see him here. 

And Sam is like, completely stiffening up beside him and Kurt flashes back to all the times that he hasn't managed to articulate how Sam makes him feel – which is literally all the time – and the fact that Blaine is something they just don't talk about outside of Sam's initial acknowledgement at the very beginning of this whole thing that Kurt couldn’t really sleep since his and Blaine's breakup, and feels suddenly sick.

"Hi, Blaine," he says, neutrally, wishing desperately that he could just… go off with Sam and reassure him that Blaine is _thoroughly_ in the past, but no such luck.

Blaine comes forward and actually _hugs_ him and Kurt just stands there awkwardly, kind of holding his hands up in the air because he doesn't particularly want to return this hug, not now, not after the last six or so months.

"I've been meaning to call you," Blaine says, moving back once he realizes that Kurt isn't feeling the hug. "To catch up. How've you been?"

"Oh, you know," Kurt says, shrugging. He doesn't elaborate. He doesn't want to tell Blaine to leave, because he doesn't want to cause any drama, since Blaine obviously came here with people – Artie is hovering in the hall right behind Blaine; they must have gotten closer this year – but he also doesn't want to do this, not here, so… stand-offish body language and conversation it is.

Blaine looks guilty. "I'm sorry," he says, and Kurt didn't tell him that he's been bad, so he doesn't really know where this is coming from, but Blaine does owe him an apology, so he says nothing. "I never should have left you for Sebastian. It was stupid of me."

"I could have told you that," Kurt says, before he can stop himself. Sam starts trying to walk away, which – no. No, that's not what Kurt wants at all, Sam can't go, he'll get the wrong idea if he goes now. Kurt doesn't want to kiss and make up with Blaine. He just wants – he just wants Sam.

But Blaine is talking again. "I know," he says, sadly. "You were just so, so great and I freaked out about you leaving and then Sebastian was _there_ , but I shouldn't have –" He breaks off and looks at Kurt. "He broke up with me last month."

"I'm sorry?" Kurt says, because he doesn't know what to say. He's surprised that Sebastian stuck around even that long, given what (admittedly little) he knows of the guy.

"Do you want to try again?" Blaine blurts, shifting from foot to foot. "I know I – you have every right not to want to, but I was just thinking, I’m single, you're single, I – I love you, Kurt, I still… and I just – I'm so sorry. It was a huge mistake, and I just regret it so much."

Kurt's stomach is bottoming out. This is everything he wanted Blaine to say to him, once upon a time, but he hasn't wanted that for months, now. He opens his mouth to speak, but closes it, more aware than ever that there's an audience and this is a _party_ , and god, he's going to ruin it for everyone. There's going to be so much drama, and no one is going to have a good time.

But then he sees the look on Sam's face, and. Yeah, they've had such an emphasis on communication ever since Halloween, but Kurt is pretty sure he's kept all thoughts about how he feels about Sam to himself, because he doesn’t want to say anything unless he really means it, but when he sees Sam's face shutter closed and the fixed smile drop off, sees him start to turn to walk away, Kurt desperately reaches out and grabs Sam's wrist. "I can't," he says, hollowly, because he's just got this image of what life would be like without Sam now. Now that he's seeing Sam's half-turn and the way he's trying to tug his wrist free of Kurt's grip, but not very hard, like he doesn't want to hear what Kurt has to say, but he also doesn't want to leave.

Kurt feels like the lowest of low.

"I can't," he repeats, now with sudden clarity because he doesn't _want_ that life without Sam, which he's known for a while but which has just been put into perspective. "I can't, Blaine, because I'm in love with Sam."

And Sam's eyes are widening and he's turning back to Kurt and biting his lip and looking Kurt straight in the eye. "Really?" he asks, quietly, and Kurt nods, desperately, because he _is_ , there's no denying it at this point. Sam leans in and kisses him, lightly, in front of everyone who is still gathered to watch, and when he pulls away, it's only minutely.

"I love you too," he whispers, and to his great credit, he doesn't add 'which you know,' which Kurt feels like he would completely deserve right now. He lets himself hope, wildly, that this will all be okay, that the party won't be completely wrecked.

He is also pretty much buzzing inside at what it feels like to release these words, so he doesn't even notice Blaine turning and walking away until he hears a gasp and looks up to see Mercedes, biting her lip hard and turning on her heels, her coat still in her hand.

"Mercedes," Kurt says, falling away from Sam, but she either doesn't hear him or just doesn't want to respond, which is, well. Likely.

He takes a step to go after her but Sam's hand, still lingering on his waist, pulls him in. Kurt pauses, and Sam tugs him aside again. 

"I really hate to say this," Sam says, and Kurt's heart sinks. He braces himself for whatever Sam's about to say. "Like, _really_ hate it, but..." He takes a deep breath. So does Kurt. "I think maybe this will go better if you talk to Blaine and I talk to Mercedes first.

Kurt blinks. He's not sure what he was expecting, but it wasn't that. "Okay," he says. He really doesn't want to talk to Blaine, and he thinks that probably Mercedes needs to talk to him just as much as she needs to talk to Sam, since yeah, Sam is her ex but Kurt has been one of her closest friends for years, but like… it's probably better if she talks to them one at a time, so it's not like they're ganging up on her, and Blaine doesn't need to talk to Sam. "That's fine."

Sam pulls him into a rough hug. "I love you," he repeats, lips barely brushing against Kurt's ear. "I'm so happy that you love me back." They kiss, once more, in front of – well, basically everyone but Finn, Kurt realizes when they break apart. Word must have spread that something was going on. Tina is staring at them. Artie and Puck are, too. Brittany is turning to Santana, saying something that Kurt can't quite make out. The others he can't see, but he's pretty sure they're there, too, probably behind him. Rachel walks in, freezes for a moment as she glances past Brittany, and then she shakes herself and starts talking loudly about needing help putting some of the snack trays together and can't Puck mix some drinks for everyone? 

Kurt needs to get Rachel a really fantastic present after all of this.

+++

He finds Blaine in the den, sitting on a couch, picking at a loose thread on his pants.

"Hi," Kurt says, tentatively, sitting down on a cushion one over from Blaine's, turning, one leg folded underneath him, so that he can face Blaine head on.

"Hi," Blaine says, staring at his lap with a singularly determined focus.

There's a long moment of silence. Kurt eventually grows annoyed with it.

"I'm not going to apologize to you," he says, finally, perhaps a little impatiently. "You basically dumped me unexpectedly after that whole fuss about not wanting to lose me and immediately went off with Sebastian. I don't think it was appropriate of you to expect me to wait for you."

Blaine does look up at that. "I'm not-" he says. "I didn't-"

"-expect me to wait? Because what you said to me back there certainly made it sound like you did, Blaine."

"No – I mean – there was nothing on Facebook."

"Facebook isn't the be all and end all of communication," Kurt says, because it isn't and boy but he's learned his lesson there, hasn't he? He elects not to clue Blaine into the whole up-and-down of his and Sam's relationship from their first kiss till now, though, and instead tells him something that is technically not a lie. "We decided to tell people individually, as we see fit. Not make a public proclamation. Sam isn't totally out yet."

Blaine blinks. "Most people seemed surprised back there."

"Most people haven't been told yet," Kurt says, rolling his eyes. "Rachel's known since September, though." Another technical truth. 

"Oh," Blaine says. "How long-?"

"Late July," Kurt says, because that's when their first kiss happened and again – he's not going to get into the details of everything.

"I had no idea," Blaine says. He's still picking at that thread. If they were still dating, Kurt would make him stop. But they're not.

"You wouldn't," he says. "How could you?"

Blaine shrugs miserably, and Kurt feels a rush of pity for the boy who was his first love.

Not a large rush, though.

"Sorry this all came out the way it did," Kurt says, because he is willing to apologize for that. "I hope you still enjoy the party."

He heads out of the room. Blaine's been given enough information. There's not much hurt left, not on Kurt's side of things, but there's still some, and Blaine is obviously hurting now. It's probably better for both of them that Kurt go. And on a more shallow level, this is a party. A New Year's Eve party. Kurt doesn't want to spend it rehashing old relationships and making his ex feel better about everything, not when his own super hot boyfriend is here, too.

He looks for Sam, but Mercedes finds him first. "He's very loveable," she says. Kurt stops, looks at her. She's obviously upset, but trying to hide it – he knows his girl. 

"Yes," he says, because what else is there to say?

"I'm glad that you're both happy," she continues. "It's just hard to see. I was going to grill you on your feelings about him when we hung out next but I guess I don't need to do that anymore." Kurt makes as if to speak, but she waves her hand at him. "No, let me." 

"Do you want to – go somewhere?" he asks.

"No, that's okay," she says. "Sam explained a lot to me, but Kurt, I'm all mixed up inside. One the one hand, I can't believe you'd do that, but on the other, I'm glad you're happy."

"Mercedes," Kurt says, stepping closer to her.

"I'm happy for you," she interrupts, a little louder this time. "Really, I am. It was just really hard watching you guys kiss." She sighs. "I think I need more time."

"Mercedes," he says, again.

"I'm trying not to be mad at you, boo," Mercedes says, looking Kurt straight in the eyes. "Or to feel really betrayed by this, because I know that you can't fight what you love but there's a part of me that wishes you did, and I don’t like that very much. Just give me some distance so I can do that."

"Whatever you need, sweetie," Kurt says, finally. He doesn’t like it. He doesn't have to. He wants Mercedes to be happy (but he also wants Sam). 

He's pretty sure she's thinking the same thing he is – that ultimately, he and Sam are picking each other over her. He hates thinking that way, but when it comes down to it, that's exactly what's happening. 

He just hopes that he doesn't have to ultimately stop counting her as a friend.

+++

Sam is in the kitchen with Tina when Kurt finds him.

"I had no idea," Tina says, as soon as she sees Kurt. "If I'd known-"

"You couldn't have stopped one or two people from coming, Tina," Kurt says. "Not to a quasi-reunion party. And you shouldn't have to."

Tina nods. "Well," she says, after a beat. "It's not a New Directions reunion party without drama, I guess."

"Probably not," Kurt agrees, moving to stand next to Sam. Tina glances at them for a moment, then makes her excuses and leaves. 

"Hi," Sam says, grinning at Kurt in a way that makes Kurt think that he's already had a drink, and probably a strong one at that.

"Hi," Kurt says, smiling back at Sam. "How are you doing?"

"Well," Sam says. "Considering a lot more people know I'm into guys now than did this morning, I'm doing pretty okay." His smile widens. "This guy I'm dating told me he loves me."

"It certainly took him long enough," Kurt says. He says it slowly, because he's caught up on the first thing Sam mentioned. 

"It's the words that matter," Sam says, lacing the fingers of one hand with Kurt's. "Not how long it took to say them."

"How did I end up with you?" Kurt blurts, because Sam legitimately made his heart flutter right then. "I mean, seriously. You are honestly the sweetest guy."

"Lucky, too," Sam says, but he offsets that by wiggling his eyebrows, so Kurt has to laugh. 

"I'm serious," Kurt says. He moves a little closer to Sam. "I'm sorry, too."

"What for?" Sam asks, immediately dropping his joking demeanor and looking at Kurt seriously. "What happened?"

"I mean," Kurt says. "I kind of outed you to just about everyone."

"You said you loved me," Sam says. "I responded and kissed you. Granted, I'm pretty sure everyone knows that you wouldn't just – out and say that-"

"-Well, not recently," Kurt amends, because there was a time that he totally would have done that.

"-But I don't mind," Sam says, looking at Kurt, seriously. "I was going to tell everyone anyway, right? This just killed like… eight birds with one stone, or something."

"Are you sure?" Kurt asks, biting his lip. "I really, really don't want to be that guy."

"Don't worry about it," Sam says, patting Kurt on the arm. "If I had a problem with it, I would have brought it up after you told Rachel." Wow, Kurt is seriously the worst at that. It's hard, transitioning form dating the most out guy ever to someone who is basically completely closeted with their friends – or, well, who _was_ basically closeted to all of their friends. He can't ruminate on this too long, however, because Sam is speaking again. "How did it go with Blaine?"

"Fine," Kurt says. He contemplates telling Sam everything – about his suspicion that Blaine was actually expecting Kurt to wait for him, about how he got all quiet and Kurt feels kind of bad for him, but mostly he's still completely high on being in love with Sam, about how he hurts for Mercedes and how he's kind of scared that his friendship with her won't ever be the same – and maybe it's good for these things, these relationships, to evolve. They're in college, after all. He just – he wants to hold onto them as much as he still can, though. And maybe that's a manifestation of dealing with a long-distance relationship…

No. He's not going to let himself think about it too closely, not now, not at a New Year's Eve party. Those can be New Year problems. Tonight, he just wants to forget the drama and have a good time with his boyfriend. His _boyfriend_. "I'll tell you all about it after the party, okay?"

Sam looks at him for a long moment, then nods. "Did you want a drink, by the way?" he asks. "Santana brought tequila." He pauses, then breaks into a grin. "And I know you get pretty interesting on the phone when you've had tequila. I wouldn't mind experiencing that first-hand."

"Oh, shush, you," Kurt says, elbowing Sam. The oven beeps, and Kurt investigates – Finn's bagel bites. He grabs an oven mitt from its hook on the wall and takes it out, gingerly moving the snacks to a plate, focusing on the food rather than Sam's face as he says, "I was mostly planning on getting really, really high tonight." He pauses. "I've never mixed alcohol with weed before."

"You don't have to if you don't want to," Sam says, quickly, moving to help Kurt with the last of the food. "I mean, you know that. But it's fine either way."

"I know," Kurt says, grinning at Sam and picking up the plate. "Let's go find everyone." He'll make a decision when they're back with other people.

+++

Santana is leaning heavily into Kurt's side, glaring across the room. Kurt can't tell what she's glaring at; all he can see is Brittany attempting to teach Finn how to do some complicated line dance that Kurt vaguely remembers as being popular in middle school.

He guesses she just misses her. 

He can't identify. Sam is on his other side a warm and heavy presence. Kurt is vaguely tipsy – he ended up having two light drinks, since Puck made it pretty clear he wasn't going to bring out the pot until later in the evening. 

It's about forty-five minutes till midnight now, though, and Puck is busting out some joints for anyone who wants them. "Puff puff pass," Puck tells everyone, checking, ostensibly, to make sure that they're rolled well.

Kurt can hear a laugh from upstairs, but he can't tell who it is – Rachel is up there, avoiding the smoke, and Quinn, Artie, Mercedes, and Blaine are with her, in some capacity or another. Everyone else is gathering around, sitting more or less in a circle on the concrete floor. When Puck lights up, Brittany waves and heads upstairs; Finn joins the circle. 

The joint comes to Kurt before it does Sam, and he's a little sad that he can't put his mouth in the same place that Sam just had his – it's kind of weird, thinking about how the damp at the end of the paper is from Santana's mouth, and Puck's, and Tina's, rather than Sam's. 

He inhales deeply just the same, relishing in the taste and feel of the smoke as it curls in his mouth and down his throat. Even though they're doing puff-puff-pass, he gestures at Sam until Sam nods, then passes the joint over. 

It's like coming home, watching Sam's lips fit familiarly around the end of the joint, watching the way his throat works just the tiniest bit when he starts inhaling, the way –

The smoke is turning acrid in Kurt's lungs, so he pushes it out in one whoosh of breath and takes the joint when Sam passes it back. Good, so he understood Kurt's gestures. 

Kurt takes his second inhale, and by this point, smoking isn't like coming home. It's this totally new and weird experience because he can't shotgun Sam, not when there are like, lots of people around who have literally just learned about them, not when Mercedes is upstairs. She was acting happy again when people started splitting off to do this, but then again, she'd had a lot to drink.

He can feel the familiar sensation coming over him, the humming in his veins and the buzzing in his brain of the pot taking over, and for the first time in months, he gets to breathe with Sam as Sam takes his second hit, gets to watch the smoke furl out of Sam's mouth on his exhale. He's so caught up in it, and watching Sam just _breathe_ that he almost doesn't notice the joint when it comes around again.

The high hits quicker and harder than he's used to, probably because it's been a while since he's smoked, and by the third pass, watching Sam wrap his lips around the filter and the way his tongue pokes out as he pushes the smoke free of his lungs and his mouth on his exhale has Kurt shifting uncomfortably, trying to adjust himself in his pants without anyone noticing what he's doing or that he's half-hard from just the sight of Sam smoking.

Luckily, someone – Rachel? – shouts down from upstairs that the countdown is in fifteen minutes before Kurt can do something truly inadvisable, like climb on Sam's lap and suck the smoke from his lungs, and they make their way upstairs at the back of the group, fingers brushing against each other as they climb up the stairs, which is a startlingly difficult task at this point of the evening. Sam grabs a couple bottles of beer from the cooler they're resting in and passes Kurt one after opening it, impressively, with his mouth – which, well, that was the worst fucking idea Sam's ever had, because Kurt is harder than ever and people are there and _Mercedes is there_ , god, this is going to be so awkward in the morning.

There's a bit of debate about whether they want to watch the ball drop or whether they want to bundle up and troop outside and rush to the park at the end of the subdivision to watch the city's fireworks show, since it's a clear shot from there to the parking lot where everything gets shot off. Rachel points out that fireworks are so much more dramatic and they can see the ball any old time, but who knows when they'll all be together in the same place in time for fireworks, so everyone is bundling up when inspiration strikes Kurt.

He knows that he shouldn't do this, that Rachel has a point. But on the other hand, it's almost the new year and they say that what you're doing on New Year's Eve indicates what you'll be doing for the rest of the year. He doesn't really buy into that kind of superstition but he's high and kind of drunk and lives seven hundred miles away from his _boyfriend_ most of the year and he just has needs, okay?

As they exit the house, he tugs Sam aside and whispers, "We should walk home instead."

Sam looks at Kurt, eyes bright and reddish in the streetlight. He licks his lips twice and then breathes " _Yes_."

"Finn will bring the car home tomorrow," Kurt says. "I'll text him. And you can text someone and say I had to stop to pee and then we got turned around or something so no one's feelings get hurt, and –"

"Stop planning," Sam says, leaning in so far that his lips tickle Kurt's ear as he talks and, yeah, that's a pretty convincing argument. "Don't worry about them. Let's just do it, Kurt, it's like the best idea."

So they take a left when everyone else takes a right and they're back at Kurt's house before the fireworks start to go off. 

Kurt digs out the spare key from where it's hidden under a planter by the front door and lets them in – Rachel still has his keys – and they make their way to Kurt's bedroom in what feels like absolutely no time.

Kurt locks the door and pulls off his clothes as he makes his way to the bed, only sort of tripping once. "I want you so bad," he tells Sam, pushing his pants down his leg and then realizing he maybe should have taken his shoes off, first. He sits down on the bed to do it properly.

"You have me so bad," Sam says. He's managed to get down to his underwear. His hair is falling into his face as he pushes them off. He glances once that's done. "I'm cold, come warm me up."

"Anytime," Kurt promises, because tonight is a night for promises and he just wants to make so many to Sam now that he's started and now that he's loosened up, the taste of the smoke still lingering in his mouth.

They tumble over each other, kissing and kissing, a rush of limbs and lips and tongue, but when Kurt starts to feel dizzy, he pulls back and takes a few deep breaths.

"Let's go slow," he says. "We have all the time we need." He pauses, reflects on that statement, and amends it, because it's not entirely precise. "In general, not necessarily this week."

"I'm ready," Sam blurts, and when Kurt stares at him, he adds, "It's not some kind of prize for being in love with me, Kurt, and it's not just the weed or the drinks or anything. I was ready last night and this morning and this afternoon and everything. I just – whenever you're ready, too. I just - thought you should know."

Sam is completely red and Kurt stares with fascination for a moment, brushing Sam's hot-to-the-touch cheek with his fingertips before moving in for a long, slow kiss, lips sliding together slick and sloppy but still so, so good. He pushes his tongue against the seam of Sam's lips, tickling past and brushes it against Sam's tongue, tasting the drinks he's had and the sweet-spicy ashy smoke that hasn't been chased out by the beer. 

And then Kurt burps and draws away in shock, hand flying to his mouth, and Sam dissolves into giggles. Kurt joins after a moment, resting his forehead against Sam's as they laugh.

He almost doesn't notice the way that his hips are moving against Sam's the way Sam's hard cock is slotted against his thigh, tiny little brushes of precome smearing on his skin, but as he starts to catch his breath, calming down from the laughter, he has to stop and catch his breath all over again at the feeling of the pressure of Sam's warm dry skin on his dick, the faintest brush of body hair along his erection.

"Okay," he whispers, because he loves sex and he knows that the swelling feeling inside of him will just expand and explode inside of him when he's deep inside Sam, Sam's legs around his waist pulling him deeper still.

They kiss, and it feels like forever, but a good kind of forever. Kurt tangles his fingers in Sam's short hair, then moves his hand down to cup Sam's butt, kneading lightly as Sam pushes his hips against Kurt's, breaking the kiss to mouth along Kurt's neck, mostly just brushing his lips in tiny little sweeps up and down but occasionally grazing the flesh with his teeth. Eventually, though, the kissing starts to heat up again and Kurt has to pull back to fumble through his nightstand for the lube and a condom. 

Fingering Sam is now familiar to him – since they've stopped trying (or maybe just stopped managing) to be so discreet about this whole thing, they've done it at least three times this break. He can sense the difference the pot is making – or maybe it's the experience – because Sam is so relaxed when Kurt works a finger inside of him immediately going for crooking it in the way that he knows makes Sam squirm, adding a second finger as soon as he is absolutely sure that Sam can take it.

Sam moans against his lips, and Kurt shifts his focus back to his mouth. He's finding it hard to multitask tonight, because he gets totally enveloped in the sensations of one part of his body and his focus goes there entirely.

He wants to make this good, though, so he focuses on focusing everywhere that he can and then there's this sudden shift and he's kissing Sam and pushing a third finger into him, stretching Sam around his fingers and twisting and crooking them until Sam shouts out and gasps, "Kurt, please now, please" and he can pull his fingers out and fumble the condom wrapper open and roll the rubber onto his dick and god, just the way his hand moves down the shaft as he rolls the condom on is enough to make him have to hiss and bite his lips hard, just from the slight pressure of his fingers around his cock.

He's now about five hundred thousand percent sure that this isn't going to last long, even with all of the pot they've smoked and the alcohol they've drunk. But that doesn't mean it can't be good, so Kurt fixates on thoughts of the least sexy things he can think of – until his mind goes to Ms Pillsbury using hand sanitizer as lube with Mr. Schue, and that's just like, so horrifying that he stops trying to calm himself down and instead slicks himself up with _real actual_ lube and grips the base of his dick, tightly.

"How do you want to do this?" he asks Sam, breathlessly, mouth hovering a scant inch away from Sam's own.

Sam leans up and claims his mouth in the deepest kiss of the night. "Exactly like this," he says, so Kurt sits up on his knees and pushes Sam's knees up. Sam must put his weight on his feet or something, because he lifts his ass a couple of inches in the air, and Kurt has to swallow a couple of times at Sam presenting like this (it's such a beautiful sexy sight) before he can line himself up properly. 

"Tell me if I need to slow down," he says, gripping the base of his cock even tighter as he starts to push in, way slowly and carefully. It's so hard not to just drive in deep and hard and fast and fuck himself and Sam boneless, quick and dirty. But there's time for that in the future – and his heart jumps because there's _time_ for that in the future – so he just bites his lip harder and watches Sam's face carefully as he pushes slowly and deep until Sam wraps his arms around Kurt's back and his legs around Kurt's waist and pulls him in the rest of the way and Kurt stops gripping the base of his cock quickly and bottoms out inside Sam.

Sam is tight and hot and already clenching around Kurt's cock in the most delicious of ways, and Kurt just needs more and more of it, so he rolls his hips carefully, and then again, and one more time, and then Sam is shifting up against him and pulling him deeper with every in-thrust, so Kurt just lets go. 

Fucking high feels like swimming on dry land, but better, because when you swim you're not actually inside someone, feeling the heat and the pressure envelop your dick, feeling the slide and the drag of each thrust in and out. Kurt's head spins pleasantly as he rolls against Sam, and he leans in to kiss Sam, and then his tongue is surrounded by the wet heat of Sam's mouth, and the combination of that with the fact that he is _inside Sam_ is just too much.

He almost loses his rhythm and does fuck into Sam erratically for a hot second, but then he sees Sam screw up his face so he focuses on going slower, shifting down a little to change the angle of his thrusts. Sam cries out, an incoherent mumble. Kurt barely makes out a few of the words Sam says - _love_ and _Kurt_ and _fuck_ and _high_ and a lot of other things that Kurt doesn't get.

He doesn't need to, though, because he understands what Sam is getting at, just the same. He feels similarly. 

Sam suddenly moves one arm from around Kurt's back, accidentally scratching him in the process and now it's Kurt's time to shout because he actually liked the feeling – and there's another thing to consider after everything calms down, if he remembers enough from tonight to actually think about it again – and he feels Sam's knuckles brush against his stomach for a beat and realizes, on some level, that Sam must be jerking himself off.

And then Sam is clenching around him again, groaning and gasping his love, and Kurt feels a hot splash of come on his stomach and at that, he loses it and drives hard into Sam again and again for one, two, three thrusts.

He can feel his balls tightening and his orgasm approaching on the fourth, and then it's there, waves of pleasure crashing over him. His vision whites out and he collapses onto Sam. He knows he's blurting something out, but he can't for the life of him recognize what words are coming out of his own mouth right now.

+++

Eventually, he manages to pull out of Sam – groaning again at the way his softening dick slips out of Sam – and somehow pulls the condom off with a minimum of mess. He ties it off and goes to flush it down the toilet, wetting a washcloth with warm water while he's in the bathroom to clean both of them up.

They're cuddling in bed, holding hands and chuckling over the plans they're making for the future (lunch tomorrow, the Newport Aquarium when Kurt drives Sam back home, working out together from seven hundred miles away during the upcoming semester by checking in before and after; Sam can practice what he's learning in class by setting training routines for Kurt, another camping trip when summer rolls around again), when the thought strikes him. "We've broken all of our rules," Kurt says, laughing into Sam's shoulder. 

"Our – what?" Sam looks adorably confused, and wow, Kurt just wants to have him around all the time so he can kiss him everywhere whenever he wants. 

"Our rules, you know," Kurt says. "No telling people, no anal sex, no touching of any kind in public, no doing things while other people are awake." He pauses, trying to remember if there were more. If there are, he can't think of them. "Our rules so we wouldn't hurt anyone or get too involved."

"Kurt," Sam says, very seriously. "Dude. I hate to say this, but the rules stopped working for me before we even came up with them." 

"Sam," Kurt breathes, no longer laughing. He kisses Sam and grabs his hand, holding on tight. "Sam. I love you."

Sam smiles wider than anything, so, so impossibly wide. Kurt watches as his lips stretch and thinks that, yeah, it's nice when those lips are stretching around his cock but it's also so, so nice when they're stretching like this, into a gorgeous compelling smile that only Kurt can see. "Me too," Sam says, and just, all of these words are so beautiful, Kurt can't handle it.

He knows that falling asleep with Sam is a bad idea. His parents will be home any minute, and they're bound to find him out in the morning. But the sex and the weed and the booze are all making Kurt feel heavy and lethargic, and he really doesn't want to sleep alone on tonight of all nights, so he keeps holding onto Sam and lets sleep carry him away.

He'll deal with his dad in the morning. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luckily, Burt doesn't know that there's something going on between the two of them, so Kurt isn't surprised when Burt doesn't immediately ask to speak to him privately. Instead, Burt just looks between the two of them. "Sam fall asleep in your room?"
> 
> "Yes," Kurt says, defensively. "We were very tired when we got back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been three years and five days and I just felt really guilty about abandoning this when the final chapter was 3/4 written lmao. SORRY THAT NO ONE EVEN CARES ABOUT THIS ANYMORE and also I haven't watched glee in over three years and five days. This was originally going to be, like, three times longer and set up for a pezberry sequel, but that's not going to happen anymore, SO. So. Here we go!

Since they figure that they're already pretty much screwed, and since Kurt's door is still locked from last night, they have sex again in the morning. Somehow, in the middle of the night, they ended up with Kurt tucked, face to Sam's chest, with Sam's arm slung loose across his waist and Sam's morning wood brushing up against his hip. 

Their movements start out slow and honeyed, ensconced as they are in warm blankets and sheets and slowed down by the gentlest of hangovers. Sam's breath is awful and Kurt is certain that his isn't much better, but he doesn’t want to get out of bed to fix that until he's done shaking and coming, fingers sticky with lube, cock buried deep inside Sam.

"I love you," he breathes as he comes. "I love you, I love you."

Sam just lets his eyes fall closed and his hips arch up. "I'm so happy," he gasps. "I love you so much."

Kurt pulls out eventually and they lay together, fingers tangled, Sam a consistent warmth against Kurt's skin, blankets piled up around their feet, for a full half-hour before Kurt drags himself up and says, "Do you want to brave going out and snagging the first shower, or shall I?"

Sam grins wickedly up at Kurt. "I think maybe I'll throw you to the wolves first," he says, and Kurt considers making a witty comeback, but Sam is just… he's lying there naked, and his chest alone presents a pretty compelling argument for Kurt to agree with whatever he suggests.

He manages to get through his shower and routine and back into his room without incident. It's not until he and Sam, both clean and dressed, make their way down to the kitchen that he actually sees anyone else.

His dad is sitting at the kitchen table, bowl of cereal in front of him. He looks up at Kurt and Sam for a long, heavy moment, and Kurt has just opened his mouth to blurt something when his dad nods at the two of them and says, "Have a nice New Year's party with your friends, boys?"

"Yeah, it was a lot of fun," Sam says, blithely.

"There were some awkward moments," Kurt added. "Blaine showed up, for example."

Burt gives him a measured look. "You okay?"

"We talked," Kurt says. "It was probably overdue."

His dad nods, and Kurt has to focus to keep his face straight. He remembers when Blaine spent the night, how his dad reacted. He's just waiting for it, mentally preparing for when his dad lays down the law Kurt broke last night again.

Luckily, Burt doesn't know that there's something going on between the two of them, so Kurt isn't surprised when Burt doesn't immediately ask to speak to him privately. Instead, Burt just looks between the two of them. "Sam fall asleep in your room?"

"Yes," Kurt says, defensively. "We were very tired when we got back."

"I guess so," his dad says. "I guess you would be. You must have walked all the way from Mike's house, seeing as Finn isn't back yet and neither is your car." His gaze at Kurt sharpens. "I’m hoping you were safe last night."

"Beg pardon?"

"I wasn't born yesterday, Kurt. I know what happens on New Year's Eve."

Kurt's immediate understanding of the situation is that his dad is referring to drinking. But for some reason, he's getting the impression that his dad means more than that. His hangover is growing in strength, though, and his dad hasn't said anything about him sleeping with Sam, and, well. Kurt is pretty positive that his dad has no clue that Sam isn't exactly the straightest boy he knows. So it can't be a _sex_ thing, that Burt is referring to. Right?

He feels uncomfortable admitting to drinking, too, especially considering his dad's reaction to finding out he was drunk in school during sophomore year, back during the hot second that April Rhodes was a student (Burt was disappointed and worried), but he's in college now and he's reached the legal drinking age in most countries in the world, if not the United States, and there is no way his dad could have any inkling of the drug use, so – "Yes, we were safe."

"Okay," Burt says, nodding heavily. He pauses, takes a bite of cereal, and chews. Kurt contemplates moving past him to start making a pot of coffee for himself and Sam, but there's something in the way his dad is sitting that makes him pause. A quick glance at Sam reveals that his boyfriend (!) is standing kind of awkwardly. His hair is still wet, so it's lying flat on his head, his bangs falling down over his forehead (but too short, now, to fall across his eyes). His thumbs are hooked in his front pockets and Kurt is pretty sure he can visibly _see_ Sam avoid shifting from foot to foot.

Kurt's focus snaps back on his father when he sighs loudly. "Look, Kurt," Burt says. "Sam. I was hoping you two would bring this up sooner." He looks directly at Sam. "I didn't want to force you into saying anything, son." He glances between the two of them again. "But I'm a father, first and foremost, and I gotta know." He pauses, starts again. "I wouldn't bring this up unless I was absolutely positive, but – how long has this been going on?"

"How long has what been going on?" Kurt asks, stiffly. He doesn’t mean to go automatically on the defensive with his dad. He loves the man. He just – well. As Burt said. Sam shouldn't be forced into saying anything, if his dad is truly asking about their relationship, and Kurt is becoming increasingly concerned that he is.

They had a schedule, is the thing. Kurt didn't want to tell his parents until the end of Sam's visit. He doesn't want to be monitored more closely. He doesn't want Sam to be barred from his room, or to be barred from the guest room. He just – he wants to be as close as possible to his boyfriend as much as he can, until they have to say their goodbyes and be hundreds of miles apart for another obscene amount of time. He doesn't want his dad to know, not yet.

Something brushes against his arm, and when he looks up, it's the little finger of Sam's hand. Sam is looking straight at him, eyebrows raised. When Kurt frowns slightly at him, Sam mouths what looks like "I don't mind if you don't mind."

Kurt takes a deep breath and nods at Sam, who looks about a thousand times less awkward as he steps forward and pulls a chair out across from Burt at the kitchen table. He sits, nods for Kurt to do the same.

Once Kurt is sitting down, too, Sam takes his hand, links their fingers, and moves their hands on top of the table. "Mr. Hummel," he says. "Um, I’m bi, probably. And, more importantly, I’m in love with your son."

"Well," Burt says, smiling what Kurt can't help but think of as a secret kind of smile. "I'm glad you trusted me enough to tell me."

"Yes, sir," Sam says. He sounds calm, collected, but Kurt can feel the sweat collecting between their hands, and even considering the state of Kurt's other palm, at least some of it has to be coming from Sam.

Burt pushes his bowl of cereal away. "So – how long?"

"We've been officially dating since I picked Sam up in Cincinnati a couple of days ago," Kurt says.

"There's been – something there – since last summer, though," Sam adds. 

"And you're happy? Safe?"

"Absolutely," Kurt says, immediately. He looks at Sam. "I love you, too."

Saying it? It doesn't get old.

It isn't until they're finished with breakfast and Carole, who comes downstairs _very_ late and looking very rumpled, which, _ew_ , takes Sam aside for some kind of conference, that Burt snags Kurt and tugs him into the garage to help him look for their rock salt to get rid of some of the ice on the porch.

"So," he says, as they poke through various tubs, trying to remember where they put it last. "Sam's a good guy."

"I think so," Kurt says. There's this swelling in his chest as he says it. He feels positively flush with emotion. "I, um. I really think so."

"He's got a good head on his shoulders," his dad adds. "I've always liked him." He clears his throat. "Unless he's not good to you."

"He's great," Kurt says, and then, for some reason, he can't help but say, "Sorry we broke your rule."

Burt looks confused for a moment, then embarrassed. "You're in college now," he says, finally. "You – I mean, you're my little boy, but you're also grown up. I figure you can make your own decisions." He pauses, clears his throat. "That is not to say – just – think about what is appropriate to do under my roof."

Kurt blinks. This was not exactly what he expected. "Um," he says.

His dad actually _laughs_ at him. "Don't underestimate me, Kurt."

Kurt isn't quite sure how to respond. Finally, he says, "I think we're out of rock salt."

His dad's smile widens. "I knew we were."

+++

Finn texts him that he's at Rachel's; that Hiram picked them up from Mike's for a New Year's brunch.

 _What about my keys?_ Kurt asks, and Finn's response is slow in coming. He's in the middle of watching that Avengers movie – a somewhat self-serving gift from Finn to Burt that Sam was excited to see on their shelf of DVDs – when the response finally comes _rach left them at mikes, sry dude we didnt no where u were_.

"I need to get the Nav," Kurt says, rolling his eyes after he reads the text. Burt and Carole don't really look away from the tv screen, but Sam rests his hands on his knees and pushes himself up.

"I want to come with you," he says. "There's something at Mike's house that I need to do."

So since it's not totally gross outside, Kurt and Sam end up walking, hand-in-hand, back to Mike's house to get his car. They don't really talk – the air is cold and dry, and talking and walking kind of makes Kurt feel like coughing – but they walk a little too close together the entire way, the bumping of their arms and bodies together more than making up for the fact that Kurt can't feel the skin of Sam's fingers between his own, what with the gloves they're both wearing.

Kurt has almost forgotten that Sam had a reason for coming with – besides spending time together, of course – by the time that they knock on the door and Tina answers, Mike close behind her. "Hi," Tina says, and Mike nods hello, so he is about to just ask if he can get his keys when Sam pushes forward and says, "Hey, can I talk to you guys for a moment?"

Mike opens the door wider, and Sam squeezes Kurt's hand for a moment. He gives him a bit of an anxious look, so Kurt squeezes back, even though he's really not sure what's going on right now.

They've just sat down on the couch in the living room when Sam says, "So, you guys may have… overseen or overheard a lot of stuff last night, but I wanted to tell you to your faces." He rubs his hands over his jeans again, so Kurt instinctively leans into him, willing him to relax. He's beginning to get an inkling of what Sam is about to do. 

Sam clears his throat. "Anyway, I'm, um. Not straight." He blinks. "Actually I feel pretty gay right now, but I think the best term is 'bi.' Um. Anyway. In any case, I'm interested in guys" He glances over sideways at Kurt quickly, so Kurt gives him what he hopes is an encouraging, reassuring smile. "Or at least, one guy." He grins shakily at Kurt, then looks anxiously up at Mike and Tina. "Anyway, I wanted to tell you that myself instead of just like… letting you figure it out without like –" He breaks off and smiles ruefully. "This is me officially confirming, I guess."

Tina launches herself forward and pulls Sam up into a big hug. "I'm so glad you told me," she says. Kurt guesses Sam didn't tell her officially when they were hanging out in the kitchen last night. Maybe he was waiting for everyone to be more sober. 

Mike hangs back a little, but he's smiling, and when Tina moves away, he nods at Sam. "It's cool that you're telling us, dude," he says.

They end up chatting for another thirty minutes before finally extricating themselves. Kurt can't stop thinking about how he didn't initially know what Sam was going for, when he asked to talk to Mike and Tina. It's just – he's been so caught up in the newness of this relationship, and feeling like it's so much more mature than his relationship with Blaine ever was, so quickly. He just – well.

He needs to make a mental note to remember that, despite the utter _quality_ of their fledgling relationship, there's still a lot about Sam that he doesn't know yet.

Although part of him is embarrassed that he was letting himself think that their relationship was at a certain level that it may not actually be at, not yet, he's still pretty excited for how far they can still go. And that's got to be something.

+++

During the rest of Sam's visit, they slowly make their way around to the rest of the club so that Sam can come out officially, outside of the huge outburst with Blaine on New Years' Eve. Everyone reacts positively, of course, but reactions vary.

Quinn's stands out. Her grin is a more rueful than anything, but she hugs Sam tight – and Kurt as well, a briefly – and kisses him on the cheek. Kurt can't hear what she whispers in Sam's ear, but whatever it is makes Sam blush and smile.

Kurt figures it's indicative of how much he's grown to trust Sam and Sam's feelings, how he doesn't even feel jealous at that. Much.

"I know that everyone has figured it out by now," Sam tells Kurt, his second-to-last night in Lima, after Kurt finally gets around to asking why he's going to everyone individually. They're walking away from Brittany's house (she'd just shrugged and said that she had guessed). Sam still has two people on his list, Rachel included. "I mean… I pretty much told them at the party, and like, I _know_ you told Rachel a couple of months ago, but like, this is just something I've got to do."

Kurt can respect that.

Interestingly, Sam doesn't express a need to tell Santana. When Kurt asks why, Sam smiles this tiny cute smile. "She's the first person I came out to," he explains. "I was asking her for advice about how to woo you earlier this summer."

That surprises Kurt. "She never let on," he says, faintly, suddenly impressed with her acting all throughout last semester like she had no idea what was going on.

"She's a good friend," Sam says, simply.

As they make their way back home after Sam comes out officially to Puck, Sam takes a deep shuddery breath. "I think that's enough practice," he says, and then glances at Kurt. "You'll – will you stay with me while I come out to my parents and like, tell them about us and everything? When you take me home?"

"I promise," Kurt says, and has to pull over in a dark parking lot by a local playground, abandoned on this winter night, so that Sam can pull him into a deep kiss.

+++

It starts to snow halfway through their drive back to Kentucky. Kurt had initially planned on driving back that day – loathe though he is to leave Sam, they talked it over and decided that it was probably best for Kurt to not spend the night right after they come out as a couple to Sam's family – but by the time they reach Dry Ridge, it's thick and fast and sticking to everything.

There's no way to tell how deep it will get, and how long it will last, not from the relatively slow-moving traffic on I-75, but Kurt just has this gut feeling that he'll be stuck in Kentucky longer than anticipated. He's not sure how bad it will get, but still. He's pretty thankful that he still has just under a week before he needs to be on his plane back to New York.

Despite the snow, the closer they get to Lexington, the more Kurt feels that familiar anxious fluttering in his stomach at the thought of saying goodbye to Sam for a while again.

He pushes his thoughts to the back of his mind as much as he can and glances over at Sam, who is staring pensively out the window, fiddling with a tube of chapstick and sometimes mouthing along with the lyrics to the song playing on the radio. 

Kurt reaches over and strokes a finger along Sam's hand, until he looks over with a quick smile and threads their fingers together. "Are you ready?" Kurt asks, as he takes the exit off of I-75.

"As ready as I'll ever be," Sam says, and because he looks nervous, Kurt pulls off into a Waffle House parking lot just to give him a quick fortifying kiss.

Sam doesn't say anything about Kurt, or liking boys, or anything along those lines when they get to his house, though, or when everyone piles into Kurt's car – it's the only one big enough to fit the entire Evans family plus Kurt – and goes out to dinner – or when they sit down. Sam doesn’t say anything about that at all until:

"So how was New Years' Eve?" Stevie asks. "Did you kiss any cute girls?"

Kurt's mouth goes suddenly dry. He glances at Sam, but indirectly, out of the corner of his eye. He can't be certain, but he thinks that Sam's mom glances at him briefly before redirecting her gaze to her oldest son.

"No," Sam says casually, ripping a hunk of bread off of the loaf and dipping it in olive oil. "I did kiss Kurt, though."

"Does that mean you _love_ Kurt?" Stacy demands, looking between the two of them. 

"I, well," Sam says, and he sits up straighter, looks at his family seriously. Kurt scoots his hand closer to Sam's leg underneath the table, in case he needs something to hold onto. He feels Sam's fingers brush against the side of his palm, but they don't latch on, they just kind of hover there while Sam sets his mouth and firmly says, "Yes, it does."

"You're gay?" Stevie asks, raising his eyebrows. There it is – Sam cups Kurt's hand in his own and squeezes, hard. Kurt is actually quite impressed; Sam's (admittedly extremely expressive) face doesn't give very much away at all. 

"Bi," Sam says, steadily. He looks uncertainly at his parents, so Kurt turns his palm over so that it's resting solidly against Sam's own and squeezes back. "If you want to put a label on it. I just – really love Kurt."

Sam's parents still aren't saying anything, so Kurt takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders, and says, "And I really love Sam."

Kurt can't read Sam's parent's expressions. They seem to be having some kind of conversation with their eyes – and Kurt can't help the little stomach flutter he gets at the thought that someday, maybe, he and Sam might be able to do that – and then Sam's father sighs and says, "I can't pretend that I love this," and Kurt's stomach bottoms out.

He tugs at Sam's hand until it's more in his own lap and then covers it with his other hand, for reassurance. He wants to say something, but he doesn't want to muck anything up, so he just settles for scooting his chair a little bit closer to Sam's and hopes that it sends the message that he's not going to give up on Sam just like that.

Sam looks over at Kurt, quick and grateful and so, so stricken, and before Kurt can even check himself, he's saying, "I think that-"

But he stops himself, mostly because he's not sure where he wants to go with his response, but also because Sam's mom is holding up her finger. When Kurt falls silent, she says, "We like you, Kurt. You've been really great to our family and our – our Sam, for so long."

Sam's dad nods. "We thought you two might, uh. We thought this might eventually happen." He sighs, takes a long sip of his Pepsi, and then clears his throat. "We're not going to, uh, forbid anything between the two of you. I wouldn't have picked this life for you, Sam, but - if it has to be a guy, at least it's you, Kurt."

"You'll be staying the night because of the snow," Sam's mom says to Kurt. "But I'm afraid we can't let you stay in Sam's room."

"Of course," Kurt says, mouth dry. His heart is pounding with the need to get Sam alone and just let him _talk_ if he needs to, but he manages to rein it in.

Sam is subdued through the rest of dinner, and when they get back to the Evans's house, he says, suddenly, "I wanted to take Kurt past some of the horse stuff and show him around a bit," so they drop everyone off and Sam directs Kurt out, past the airport, until they hit the entrance to a racetrack – "The one they used for filming in, like, Seabiscuit and Secretariat," – and pull through to an empty, snowy parking lot.

It's cold outside but Kurt still leaves one of his gloves off and Sam tugs off one of his mittens so they can walk, hand in hand, up to the entrance of the track. "Are you okay?" Kurt asks, finally, when they're stamping the snow off of their shoes underneath an overhang in front of a lot of locked entrance gates.

"Yeah," Sam says, curling up towards Kurt. Kurt extends his arms, wraps one around Sam. It's weird, he thinks. He's not usually the one to give the comfort. "I don't know. I don't know what I expected to happen."

"They didn't run me out of town on a rail," Kurt jokes, and Sam's lips quirk up but he doesn't smile fully, so Kurt just presses a kiss to the top of Sam's head. His hair is cold against Kurt's lips, but it warms quickly, because Kurt doesn't quite pull away and neither does Sam.

"I love you," Sam says, finally, after a few more minutes' silence. He twists around to kiss Kurt, a quick brush of lips against lips.

"I love you too," Kurt tells him, tilting his forehead against Sam's for a moment before pulling away and stamping his feet against the cold. He's feeling a little bit lost, because he doesn't know what to do for Sam – or even if there is anything _to_ do. 

But Sam is just quirking a smile at him and extending a hand. "C'mon," he says. "We can walk around and try to see the track before we head back, if you want."

Kurt can't think of any song that could possibly describe the swelling feeling in his chest, like he's about to bubble over and melt in a huge mess all over the frozen ground. It's an uncomfortable feeling, but not unpleasant, and when he and Sam reach the car again, finally, and Sam makes as if to tug his hand free and go around to the passenger's side, Kurt freezes and abruptly pulls Sam into a tight hug. 

He's never been one to initiate close contact like that, not really, and Sam's expression is startled when he finally pulls away, but he pushes back all the thoughts and questions of _why_ and how and presses a kiss to the corner of Sam's mouth before unlocking the doors on the Nav.

+++

When Kurt gets home, he texts Mercedes and asks her to go shopping with him, just the two of them.

She doesn't respond.

Santana answers his follow-up text immediately, though. _buy me coffee @ the lima bean nd we can talk_ , she sends, and then: _maybe when we're at the mall i'll give u actual good advice on matching scarves to ur winter coats_.

"So Mercedes is licking her wounds?" she says, as he passes her a mocha and a scone and settles down across the table from her. Her legs are crossed, showing off this stockings deal she has going on under a great skirt. 

"You look fantastic," Kurt says, because she _does_ and he's found, over the past semester, that starting Santana off with a compliment makes her generally so much easier to handle overall. 

"I know," Santana says, but she crosses her legs again, so Kurt is pretty sure that she's pleased with the compliment. "You're avoiding the question."

Kurt sighs. "Yes," he says. "I think she is."

"Well, she did just find out that her oldest friend is hooking up with her ex," Santana says. "If I found out that Britt and Puckerman were doing the dirty, I wouldn't really feel like talking to them for a while either."

"I know," says Kurt, because he does, he just wishes that she answered his texts so that he could _talk_ to her, start patching up everything and make sure she's okay.

Santana rolls her eyes. "I'm going to give you advice," she says. " _Good_ fucking advice. And I'm only going to say this once, you hear?" She waits for Kurt to nod, then looks him straight in the face and tells him, "If you try to force something now, she will only resent you. Let her know you love her and then _drop it_ , okay?"

"Okay," Kurt says, even though he doesn't like it.

"Honestly," says Santana. "Men are so useless. I’m glad I'm gay."

Kurt feels this tiny flush of pride, because even though Santana is obviously mocking him – needlessly, in his opinion – he's just happy that she's okay with being gay now. "I feel like I should protest," he says. "But men _are_ pretty useless."

"I'll drink to that," Santana says, swallowing a gulp of her mocha and then wincing. "Hot."

"By the way," Kurt says, because now that they've established that he needs to let Mercedes have some space to come to terms with his relationship with Sam, he can re-focus on something Santana mentioned in passing earlier. "You didn't tell me about you and Brittany."

"Well, yeah," Santana says. "I mean, we still fucked and stuff all summer and had a lot of phone sex last fall so it wasn't like we were really broken up so I just didn't mention it."

Kurt gives her a disbelieving look, but doesn't say anything. He'll let her keep her secrets. Mostly. "You also knew about Sam?"

"Yeah, he totally came out to me a long time ago," Santana says, tossing her hair. "Wanted my advice on how to hook up with you, which I’m pretty sure he didn’t follow, but hey!" She raises an eyebrow at him. "Looks like it worked out pretty fucking well anyway."

"Looks like," Kurt murmurs. He once overheard Mercedes tell Tina that Santana is ridiculously easy to read, but he honestly finds her to be an enigma.

+++

Rachel, bless her soul, starts planning their spring break the moment all three of them – Kurt, Rachel, and Santana – get on the plane back to JFK. "Finn will come," she says. "And Kurt, and – Santana, maybe you'll have a special someone by then, too!"

"Maybe," Santana says, looking at Rachel for a long moment and then looking across Kurt out the window of the plane.

Well. That's interesting.

"Where will they stay?" Kurt asks, because he wants this – wants his boyfriend and his stepbrother and his best girls in New York with him (and he shoves away the pang he feels momentarily, because Mercedes was his best girl but now she's barely talking to him, and he understands it, he really does. He just doesn't like it) – but _someone_ has to be pragmatic. 

"With us," Rachel says, unconcernedly. "We're in college dorms now, Kurt, we can have whoever we want spend the night."

"Well," Kurt says. "When you put it that way." Santana won't be able to stay downtown with them if Sam and Finn are both there, even if their roommates are gone. Not unless they want to forgo sex for a night, and Kurt – he loves Santana, he really does, but now that he and Sam have crossed that bridge, he wants to keep on having sex whenever he can.

The semester starts fast, and Kurt feels like he has to hit the ground running, like he's almost already behind after the first day of classes. It's invigorating. It also brings up the very much undesired memories of last semester and how being super busy was the root of a lot of the problems with his communication with Sam. 

He grits his teeth and takes home the paint swatches for his set design class and calls Sam as he tacks them onto his wall for reference's sake. He keeps his phone off in lectures, because he needs to focus, but he texts Sam under the table of coffee shops during group project meetings and snaps pictures of the crazier things he sees in his daily life in _New York City_ (and _that_ never gets old), sending them to Sam before he even starts to think about instagram. 

Sam writes Kurt these short little emails two or three times a day, waiting for class to start with his secondhand laptop open, stopping in a computer lab to download an assignment, using the family computer whenever he ends up having dinner with his parents. Kurt likes knowing that Sam is thinking about him so much, that he just dashes off these little three-sentence messages and sends them, on top of the texts and the phone calls.

They talk every night for at least five minutes before bed – or before parties, if one of them is going out. That's non-negotiable. 

And so passes January, and then February. Sam buys bus tickets to New York for spring break – the travel time is long, but the fare is cheap enough. Kurt gets caught up in maintaining his relationship with Sam and schoolwork. He spends almost every day with Rachel, since they're in so many classes together, and tries to see Santana as much as possible, which boils down to every other week.

Three weeks before spring break, Santana shows up to a NYADA party with a girl on her arm. "This is Casey," she says, and Kurt has to bite his tongue hard, because the girl is petite, brunette, and vivacious. "We go running together."

She's also phenomenally sweet, which makes Rachel's immediate and outright distaste for her surprising.

 _Have you ever thought about Santana and Rachel?_ Kurt asks Sam, and then immediately deletes the text after it sends, because if either of the girls saw it, he could get into _so_ much trouble. 

_do u mean like 2gether?_ Sam replies, then: _no isnt rach dating ur BROTHER_

Feeling appropriately guilty about everything, Kurt texts Finn. _Looking forward to seeing you in three weeks!_

Finn doesn't respond till noon the next day. _guess I shld buy tix_ , he sends, which surprises Kurt, because Sam got his tickets as soon as he could afford them.

 _Do it before they get too expensive_ , he finally replies.

+++

Kurt finds out about Finn and Rachel's breakup from both of them at nearly the same time – two minutes into Finn's phone call, Finn's voice dull, lifeless, and confused over the connection, someone starts pounding on the door. When Kurt opens it, Rachel is standing there, hand poised mid-knock, tears running down her face.

Kurt really, really doesn't want to be caught in the middle of his brother and his best friend. Still, he shifts so he's holding the phone to his ear with one hand, leaving his other hand free to draw Rachel in close with an awkward one-armed hug. He twists his arm to try and stroke her hair, but the angle is pretty painful, so he settles for rubbing her back.

"…not out of nowhere," Finn is saying. "I mean, you know how hard long distance is, bro, you know that we've been having a tough time for a while, but it's still like, a shock, you know?"

"Yeah, I know," Kurt says, still rubbing Rachel's back. She cranes up to look at him. _Finn?_ she mouths, and Kurt nods. Rachel disentangles herself from Kurt and goes to curl up on his bed.

"Yeah," Finn says. He pauses for a while, just breathing brokenly, before he says. "Hey, Burt is calling my name. I guess I gotta get headed out to class." Another pause. Kurt can hear Finn take a deep breath. "And I’m pretty sure Rachel will come to see you soon, so I should let you, like. Do that."

Kurt's heart breaks just a little bit at that. "Finn…"

"I don't mind," Finn says, thickly. "You're her best friend." He clears his throat. "You're best friends. I get it."

"You're my brother," Kurt reminds him, because he can tell Finn thinks that Kurt is going to pick one person over another in this breakup.

"Thanks," Finn says, so. He got the message. Good. "Um, I'll call you later?"

"Bye," Kurt says, and when Finn hangs up, he goes to Rachel, levering himself up onto his bed and running a hand tentatively down her back. She shudders, then scoots over until her head is on his lap. 

"I don't even know who broke up with _who_ ," she sobs. Kurt is going to have a damp spot on his pants. He runs a hand through her hair. "It wasn't working for so long but it was still _working_ , you know?"

Kurt hums a little. He's not entirely sure what she means, but he understands the emotions she's going through right now. And then there's this little greedy flash of excitement at the fact that what he and Sam have _is_ working now, this semester. That he's in love with his boyfriend, who is, in fact, his boyfriend, and they're communicating and _out_ and it's just really nice.

"I really love him," Rachel says. "This is probably for the best, for both of us, when it comes down to it, but I just really love him a lot."

When she's shifted from crying to sniffling, eyes and cheeks red and tear-stained, hair mussed up from where she buried her face in his lap, Kurt pulls her up and puts on her coat and takes her out to the downtown Whole Foods to beg an adult to buy them some of that alcoholic wine ice cream.

+++

"Are you okay with the Spring Break plans still?" Kurt asks, once Rachel has had two days to come to terms with her breakup. They're cuddled up in Kurt's bed, pretending like they don't both have essays due tomorrow that they should probably get along to starting.

"Of course," she says, after just a moment's hesitation. "I'd love to see Sam again."

"You're not going to feel like a fifth wheel?" he asks. A few days earlier, Santana'd mentioned bringing Casey along for their spring break plans. They've been alternating between racing each other at the gym and sleeping with each other. ("It's not like she's a Brittany," Santana had told him. "Or a – well. Anything like that. But she's a lot of fun, and she's probably good for me now."

That was before Rachel and Finn broke up, but Kurt has decided not to read into the ways Santana may or may not feel about Rachel, and that means not assuming that Casey being good for Santana would change just with Rachel being single. He really doesn't have anything to base his theories off of, other than basic conjecture, and while he may have theorized about it with Mercedes, he feels awkward just bringing it up with her out of the blue.

If there's anything important going on there, he figures, Santana will tell him. Maybe. It's not like she told him she broke up with Brittany, but like... she'll probably tell him if there's something going on with Rachel. Probably.)

"No," Rachel says. "It's a good thing that Santana has another girlfriend. She's been lonely since she and Brittany broke up."

"I'm sure," Kurt murmurs, even though he kind of doubts that. 

"Yes," says Rachel. Her lower lip is jutting out a little bit, and Kurt reaches forward and touches it lightly. 

"You have your brave face on, sweetie," he says, and her eyes widen, surprised. Instead of saying anything, though, she just buries her face in his chest.

+++

In true anticlimactic form, Casey leaves early the first day of Spring Break to go for a run and doesn’t come back. Santana doesn't explain it beyond a shrug and saying, "I guess better plans came up." She doesn't look too torn up about it, though. She and Rachel spend a lot of time staring at each other and looking away when they get caught staring.

Kurt can identify. He spends a lot of time staring at Sam, taking in the way that Sam's hair is darker from the winter, the way his lips curve into a smile whenever he catches Kurt looking his way. The way his fingers, thick and wide and calloused at the tips, fit intertwined with Kurt's. 

The break comes in flashes, it feels like. Santana waggles a baggie of pot one evening, and even Rachel takes a hit, and they watch old Bob Ross reruns on Rachel's TV, Kurt and Sam curled up in Rachel's roommate's bed, Rachel clutching her arms around her knees at the head of her own bed, Santana slumping, awkwardly, at the foot of it. 

Kurt drags Sam to a showing of Bring It On (the musical), and spends the entire time whispering about the costume and set design whenever the lights are dimmed. They meet up with Santana and Rachel at a party after – Santana is already wasted, and Rachel is nearly there, too, and they're circling around each other so much that they hardly notice Kurt and Sam at all. So they leave after a few drinks, hand in hand, walking the streets of New York. Kurt is just tipsy enough that the buildings seem to blur together at the juxtaposition between the dark of the night and the bright streetlights and the odd illuminated window.

They find themselves on the Brooklyn Bridge around 1am, the lights of the city sparkling over the East River. They're both quiet for a while, fingers tangling together where they've rested them on the railing, before Sam turns to Kurt and tugs him in for a deep kiss, slotting their lips together and gently, inexorably licking his way in.

"I love you," he says, when they've pulled apart for air, and Kurt grins back at him.

"Love you, too," he says, and without even discussing it, they meander until they reach a 24-hour Denny's. 

"I think," Sam says, once his mouth is full of scrambled egg, "That I want to switch my major."

Kurt stills. He's been falling more and more in love with costuming and set design than he is with acting, which he'd never predicted. "Me, too," he says, even though he's been terrified of admitting it out loud. Now that it's out there, it feels so much more reasonable. "Me, too."

"I want to become a nurse," says Sam, determinedly. "That's why I've been talking to Carole so much when I visit. I've been asking her about that."

"Sam," Kurt says, and he puts down his french fry and reaches across the table to take Sam's hand in his own, gently. "That sounds like an excellent idea."

"But," says Sam, stubbornly taking a too-big swallow of coffee and then coughing. "If I get below a 76 on, like, _anything_ , I'm out."

"So don't get below a 76 on anything," Kurt says, shrugging. Sam is dyslexic, not dumb. 

"Kurt," Sam says, rolling his eyes, but he's vibrating in his seat in a way that tells Kurt that this is really important to him, that it kills him that he thinks he might not make the cut. "I don't think you've seen my report cards."

Kurt nods slightly, then shakes his head, then takes a sip of water. "But are those for subjects you've been really passionate about?"

Sam is quiet for a long while, playing with Kurt's fingers and pushing eggs around on his plate with his toast. "Also it would probably add another year onto my education," he says.

Kurt's fingers tighten around Sam's. "We'll figure it out," he says. "Scholarships, our relationship…. If you want this, we'll make it work." They _have_ to.

Sam nods, slightly and then looks up at Kurt. "What about you?"

"Oh, yeah," says Kurt. "Think I might go into costuming. Or set design. Or something. Dabble in that for a while."

"Kurt, that sounds perfect," Sam enthuses, and, glancing around the diner, he pulls Kurt's hand up to his mouth and kisses his fingers.

+++

Spring break goes by too quickly, and Sam goes, and the semester barrels on. Santana and Rachel continue dancing around each other and their schoolwork. Kurt hangs out with the backstage crew more and more, learning the best ways to hem something quickly so that it looks professional and won't fall out on stage, but can be removed when resizing the costume for someone else, and the best ways to mix paints so that they add to scenery, rather than distracting from actors. He tells Sam everything he learns, and Sam tells him about meeting with people in the nursing department about what switching to that would entail, and how he thinks he's going to do it.

Sam's semester wraps up two weeks before Kurt's does, and he finds a job at the YMCA and signs up for part-time summer classes – "So I can still finish in three years, maybe," and he's even busier then, but he calls Kurt every day when he's driving from work to his parent's place for family dinner, which is always roughly the time Kurt finishes up with his last classes and heads back to his dorm or to the library or the NYADA costume and scene shops to work on his final projects or to study, and Kurt always calls him four hours later, too, to say goodnight.

Kurt's finals are halfway over, and he's studying for his West End elective final when Carole calls him.

Kurt almost doesn’t recognize her number flashing across his phone, at first, because usually his dad or Finn will call and then pass the phone along to Carole when they're mostly done talking.

"Hello?" he says, marking his place in his textbook with his index finger.

"Kurt, honey," says Carole. "I'm at the hospital with Burt."

Immediately, Kurt's mind flashes to his dad's heart. "Is he okay?" he asks, sitting up straight. "Did he – was he in his shop? Is he going to be okay?"

"It's just a broken leg," Carole says. "A sack of something or another fell over onto him in the shop. But it's ugly. He's going to be laid low for a while. I'd put him on, but he's a little out of it on pain meds right now."

"Okay," Kurt says, and after they hang up, he emails all of his professors and arranges to turn in his finals early whenever possible, and reschedules his tickets home for that weekend, rather than staying a week after everything wrapped up to get his dorm room packed up and put into storage for the summer.

Santana is still hanging around even though her classes are over, so he enlists her and Rachel to sort his stuff out while he's gone, deliberately ignoring the careful distance between the two of them as they stand in his room, watching his pale hands tremble as he tries to pack a carryon bag with the essentials. They'll explain their weird dance, or whatever it is, when they've got it figured out. Right now his focus is on his dad, anyway.

His dad is mostly okay, though, when Kurt gets to Lima. He's laid up in the downstairs bedroom, leg wrapped in a heavy cast and propped up on the bed. He's clearly in a lot of pain, but he seems cheerful enough. "You didn't have to make your way down here this early," he says, patting Kurt's hand when Kurt sits carefully on the edge of the bed.

"Don't be an idiot," Kurt says, tightly. He's still frantic at the sight of his dad laid up like this, however ultimately good his prognosis may be. "Someone has to run the business when you're on this little vacation."

"Finn –" his dad starts, but Kurt shakes his head. Finn is more than capable by now, probably, but he knows the ins and outs as much as any boy who's been mostly raised in a garage can.

"Both me and Finn," he says. "Together."

+++

He's on his back under a sexy little Porsche tinkering with the fuel line when a car that, by the sound of it, has a faulty exhaust system rumbles up to the garage.

"Oh, mechanic," a breathy, familiar voice says from somewhere up and to his left. "Can you fix _my_ engine?"

Kurt pushes himself out from underneath the car. "We fix vehicles here," he says, primly, as he stands up and wipes his hands off. "Not pornos." 

"It's good to see you," Sam says, and he steps forward and pulls Kurt into a tight hug. He smells amazing, which is not something Kurt ever thought he'd claim about clearly discount soap and laundry detergent. But he smells like summer, too; chlorine from the Y pool and fresh-mown lawns and, faintly, of sweat. 

Kurt kisses him, desperately, clingingly, finger tangled up in the loose neckline of Sam's t-shirt. "Didn't expect to see you here," he says, when he's pulled away.

"Well," says Sam, shrugging. "Your dad and all. I wanted to surprise you." He glances behind him. "Dad let me take the family car, and I have work so like…. I have to go home tomorrow. But."

"I love you," Kurt says, fervently, and then: "Your dad let you come? With his car?"

Sam shrugs a little, smiling faintly. "I mean," he says. "Yeah. Didn't even have to ask."

"So he's okay – "

"He's getting okay with it," Sam says, and tugs Kurt into another kiss.

+++

They leave Kurt's car at the shop when he closes it up for the day. Instead of going straight to Kurt's house, they make a detour past the Lima Bean. Sam tangles his hand in Kurt's right before they head inside, and Kurt tries not to flush too deeply at the way Sam is just so – so open with his affection now, even in Lima.

Not that he's surprised, but. It's nice.

They're waiting for their drinks – a triple mocha for Kurt and an iced tea for Sam – when a body comes up and thumps into them. "Hi guys," Brittany says, brightly, draping an arm around each of their shoulders. "Didn’t know you were in town."

"It's only for the day," Sam says. His eyes are still a little wide from being startled by her sudden appearance, and he's tense at Kurt's side, but he breathes deeply and then relaxes. "Hi, Britt."

"Hi," Brittany says. She looks down at their hands, and then back up at them. Instead of commenting on that, like Kurt expects, she says, "Mercedes is here with me. In the corner. You should go say hi."

"I don't want to force –" Kurt starts.

"You should go say hi," Brittany repeats. She stands up a little straighter. "I'm gonna go see if I can find us a coffee like we like in LA now." 

She wanders off to the counter, and Kurt exchanges a glance with Sam.

"It should be both of us," Sam says, hesitantly. "Instead of one at a time, probably, because I don't know who should go first, otherwise."

"Yeah," Kurt agrees. "Yeah."

So once their drink orders are called, they wander over. "Hi 'Cedes," Kurt says. He tries to let go of Sam's hand, out of respect or whatever, but Sam's grip tightens on his. "How are you?"

"'m okay," she says. She glances at where their hands are joined, then looks away. "You? Happy?"

"Happiest," Sam says, gently, and Mercedes nods.

"I'm glad," she says, and then clears her throat. "Kurt, I love Brittany, but she does _not_ know how to pick out a clutch hat that is both fashionable and matching."

"I can help with that," he says, softly. "Want to go shopping sometime?"

"Maybe next week?" she says, and then she's quiet for a long beat before she looks him straight in the eye. "I heard about your dad. I'm sorry."

"Thanks," he says, awkwardly, and then she's getting up and tugging both him and Sam into a hug.

"I hurt," she whispers. "For a while. But I'm happy for you two. If, like, you're happy."

"We are," Sam says, patting her on the back. "Thank you, Mercedes."

"Yeah," Kurt says. "Thanks."

+++

Sam has a little conversation with Kurt's dad when they get home, and a longer conversation with Carole about his classes, and then he and Kurt escape to Kurt's room. They curl up on Kurt's bed, kneecap to kneecap, Sam's hand on Kurt's waist and Kurt's hand tangled in Sam's hair, and kiss, slow and gentle until Kurt isn't feeling very gentle at all anymore.

He rolls over onto Sam, spreading Sam flat on his back and slipping a leg between his, deepening the kiss quickly – nearly frantically – until Sam gentles him back by stroking his hand, lightly, at the nip of his waist and the small of his back. "Love you," Sam whispers. "I'm here. It's okay."

"Okay," Kurt says, and he takes a deep breath and kisses Sam again. They move slow from there, Kurt nudging Sam's shirt up and Sam tugging Kurt's shirt off, kissing and kissing and rolling over on the bed so that Sam is on top and kissing some more.

Eventually, Kurt rolls to the side and fumbles for his lube. His dad is awake in the downstairs bedroom and Carole is puttering about the kitchen and Finn is god knows where – maybe on a date; Kurt seems to remember Finn mentioning something about that – and everyone is decidedly very much awake, so he covers Sam's giant mouth with his hand as he carefully fingers him open, hands shaking, lube dripping onto the bedsheets. 

"Love you," he says, as he finally pushes in, and then he has to bite the meat of Sam's shoulder to keep from crying out as he drives in, and in, and in again. Sweat pools between the two of them, puddling on Sam's belly and chest and face. He blinks it out of his eyes and pulls Kurt down for another kiss, soft and strong and sweet.

"It's okay," Sam says, a hand firm on Kurt's butt as Kurt tries to maintain a steady rhythm. "It's okay. I’m here. I love you." He repeats the words, though they're increasingly broken up as he gets closer and closer, until he reaches between the two of them and tugs himself off, come spattering his chest and Kurt's stomach alike. 

Kurt's orgasm curls up from his toes not long after, and he comes, shaking and trembling and collapsing into Sam's arms, and Sam strokes his back gently until Kurt's breathing is steady again. 

"Not to make this weird," Sam whispers, eventually. "Considering, you know, naked and fucked out, but. Your dad's going to be okay, and Mercedes is going to be okay, and I love you, so it's all going to be okay."

"I know," Kurt says, because he _does_ , and it's feeling realer and realer every minute – everything will be all right in the end. "Love you."

+++

That night, they sneak out and sit under the tree where it all began. "So we both have work this summer," Sam says, tilting his head over so that it's resting on Kurt's shoulder.

"Yeah," says Kurt. "But I can come down to Kentucky on weekends, especially if your parents are becoming okay with this?"

"And I can slip away a couple of times," Sam says. "I only have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I can always ask to be scheduled so that I can come up for a few days."

"We should go camping again."

Sam gives Kurt a shrewd look. "You only enjoyed that because you were high the entire time."

"Well," Kurt says. Sam's not entirely wrong. "I also enjoyed being with _you_."

Sam laughs, and Kurt's side rumbles with the vibration of it. "We'll see," he says. "I could also be convinced to go to shopping in Cincinnati. You know, if a certain boyfriend of mine insisted."

"Bold words," Kurt murmurs. "We could make a trip to King's Island, though."

"Love it," Sam says, and they fall silent for a while, listening to the crickets and cicadas chirp in the grass around them. Kurt is very nearly nodding off when Sam sits up straight, shocking him awake. "Bedtime," he says, and stands, turning around and reaching down to help Kurt up. "I want to cuddle."

Laughing, Kurt laces his fingers with Sam's, palms snug together, and registers the low hum of excitement in his hand and his belly at just that simplest of touches. It's so cool, he thinks, that even after all this time, just holding Sam's hand can be so exciting.

"This is going to be the greatest summer ever," Sam says, and Kurt grins as he pushes the door open and tugs him inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally finishing this thing was my new years' resolution GOOD GOIN, ME. IF I'D POSTED THREE YEARS EARLIER I WOULD HAVE FINISHED IT IN A TIMELY MANNER.
> 
> and now, back to your regularly scheduled one direction

**Author's Note:**

> [lj](http://el_em_en_oh_pee.livejournal.com) | [tumblr](http://dulosis.tumblr.com)


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